


the blue bird of the north

by Azurelitestar



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Assassination Attempt(s), Azure Moon compliant but has references to the other routes, Eventual Happy Ending, F/M, Gen, M/M, Miscommunication, Misunderstandings, Near Death Experiences, Post-Canon, Slow Burn, please read through warnings at the beginning of every chapter
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-04
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:47:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 49,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26272096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Azurelitestar/pseuds/Azurelitestar
Summary: There is an assassination attempt on King Dimitri during his surveillance trip to Galatea.It is not his life that ends up hanging in the balance.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Felix Hugo Fraldarius, Kyphon/Loog (Fire Emblem), Minor Sylvain/Ingrid - Relationship
Comments: 28
Kudos: 82





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mentions of crossdressing, but purely as a wartime strategy

Felix had heard of the tales when he was a child.

It was the kind of story that Faerghus parents particularly enjoyed telling their children, that Faerghus sons and daughters particularly enjoyed devouring in turn: of Loog von Blaiddyd, the King of Lions, and his sworn friend Kyphon, the Legendary Swordsman said to have descended from Fraldarius of the Ten Elites, fighting gallantly side-by-side on the Tailtean Plains and blanketing the battlefield with the blood of their enemies in a bid to win their people freedom and independence from the Empire. Of how Kyphon strode into battle, effortlessly cutting down anyone in his way to carve the path upon which Loog walked to finally cross blades with the Adrestian Emperor. Of the countless battles they had fought together to arrive at that point of time, too many for historians to agree upon even an estimated number, and more than enough to fill the novels and children's books alike.

Felix is not interested in such tales, now. But he cannot help but have heard them, as a child, and he will continue to hear them, even as grown as he is now. Even after he has fought through a war of his own.

He does not, however, expect a hidden side to the tale. Does not expect the tale, which had traditionally detailed the chivalrous deeds of very dead heroes of the distant past, to change its focus to something else altogether. 

"...A pegasus died defending Kyphon?"

His uncle nods, gravely. He's the last person Felix thinks he should be hearing this tale from – his Uncle Sheldon has never been quite as fixated on the twisted and glorified idea of chivalry and knighthood the rest of Faerghus seems to adore so much, having been born the younger to Felix's father.

(Felix's father, who had been raised as heir. Felix's father, who had been raised as the King's right-hand man.)

Because of that, his uncle was not as burdened with the pressure of the so-called sacred duty of the Fraldarius bloodline, but was forced upon knighthood nonetheless. He didn't protest – Felix has never known his uncle to be a man capable of one – but it was still...difficult to bear, to say the least, for a man who would much rather serve the people of the nation in a different capacity. All this, Felix only knew after Duscur, after all that remained of his brother was his sword and armour returned to the Fraldarius main castle, when he rode out to his uncle's manor in a fit of anger after his father had said the words that Felix would never forget for the rest of his life.

"It was an unprecedented event. Unthinkable, at the time," his uncle says, thoughtfully. Carefully. "The legendary Kyphon was rushing to the aid of his long-sworn friend, who had found himself surrounded by their enemies. Little did Kyphon know, there had been multiple snipers in the hiding, taking aim at him, for he had been their primary target, not the king. Just as the arrows flew, a pegasus dove down and took the hit that had been intended for Kyphon. The snipers were cut down immediately after."

A pause. His uncle looks at him, meets his eyes, though Felix does not know why he finds the need to do this before he continues: "In the end, there was no saving the pegasus. It passed while standing, tall and majestic like the beautiful creature it was, pierced by arrows. And this was never spoken again in the legends, for Kyphon and Loog had wished for it to be that way."

"I don't understand," Felix says, shaking his head. "Why are you telling me all this?"

His uncle looks. Stares. Felix recognises it for what it is: the obvious worry and concern wrinkling his features, the dark shadow over his uncle's blue eyes. It's the look his uncle had worn when he had told Felix his own life story, ten years back when Felix had stayed in his manor. The same look he had given Felix when Felix returned to the castle after the war, after Dimitri's coronation.

"Since the time of the Kingdom's founding, the head family of House Fraldarius has always ensured that they birthed two children every generation," his uncle says.

Felix almost whirls from the whiplash at the sudden change in topic to the unspoken tradition that his House has been practising through the ages, kept hidden even from the other noble houses in Faerghus including the royal family. Unspoken – because his father had never mentioned a lick of it to him before, and such a practice has never been recorded in the books either, so he's figured he wasn't supposed to find out.

He has always wondered if Glenn knew. Maybe he did. Maybe he found out by accident, maybe he found out on his own accord. Felix would never know, because Glenn is no longer around for him to ask, and neither is their father.

"I am aware," Felix replies, slowly. No point in hiding it or feigning ignorance about it, but still it's strange to be talking about it in the open like this.

His uncle, surprisingly enough, doesn't seem taken aback by this. Instead, he nods as though he's expected Felix to have known.

"As you are also already aware, it is also part of our family tradition to have a Fraldarius raised as the Blaiddyd King's right-hand man," Sheldon goes on to say. "This finds its roots, of course, in the story behind the founding of the Kingdom, since the days of King Loog von Blaiddyd and his right-hand man Kyphon, who is said to have hailed from House Fraldarius."

Felix more than knows all this. Has had all this memorised like the back of his hand, enthralled – though he loathes to admit this – he had been with the tales that had stood the test of time. Has heard of and experienced it himself, with how he and Glenn both had been raised alongside Dimitri for the greater part of his childhood, being trained and taught by the same tutors and instructors Dimitri had.

"Uncle," he manages, trying to rein in his temper, saving his outburst for when he finds out that he had been called to the Fraldarius castle away from Fhirdiad – during such a delicate period of time when the nation is still recovering from a five-and-a-half year long war, and the king is still learning how to be one – just to be told about some relatively inconsequential family tradition and old ancestral tale. "What, exactly, are you trying to tell me?"

His uncle goes quiet.

Then, he asks, calmly, "Have you ever read 'Loog and the Maiden of Wind', my dear nephew?"

Trust his uncle to dodge the question. Felix is tempted to fling his arms up in the air in frustration, but eventually settles for a drawn out sigh. "What, does that, have to do with anything?" Felix asks back, punctuated.

His uncle has the gall to look amused, despite the worry that still clings to his features. "I'm getting there," he says, patiently. "Do you recall a particular character in the novel – the titular masked knight who fought in many battles for her king? Whom the king declared his love to, which was not reciprocated due to her duty as his knight?"

"I know," Felix answers. Even if he hadn't already once read the book himself, he would've known enough just from how Ingrid and Ashe used to keep gushing over her as they discussed about the novel back when they were all still in the Officers Academy. "She always rode her pegasus into her battles. Dealt with her enemies faster than anybody else in the army, on par with even Kyphon himself. Took a blow that had been meant for the would-be king. Her being on her literal deathbed was what got the king realising he had loved her." Felix's face scrunches up in disdain. "You know I hate that story. Why are you bringing this up?"

"Well," says his uncle, "because that very knight – that very Maiden of Wind – is none other than Kyphon."

Silence.

Utter, painful silence.

Felix can feel his head splitting.

"...What," Felix deadpans.

"Oh, I don't mean to say that Kyphon was a girl,” his uncle explains. "Or that King Loog had harboured any romantic affections towards his trusted friend. Though the latter, I have to admit, I cannot be completely certain of since—"

"So what have you been trying to tell me?" Felix asks, exasperated and suddenly very exhausted.

His uncle looks at him again, with that haunted look in his eyes. "What my brother would've wanted to tell you," he says, simply.

Felix stills. Ponders, thinks about the meaning behind his uncle's words. Feeling a flicker of irritation at his uncle's tendency to beat around the bush – but a flicker is all it is, and so it dies just as quickly, leaving merely a sensation of emptiness in its wake. 

As Felix is busy sorting his thoughts, he does not notice his uncle having gone to his desk to retrieve something until he hands it out to him. Says to him, quietly, "Take it, my nephew."

Felix glances down at it, first. It is a box, large enough that it requires two hands to hold, but small enough for it to rest quite comfortably in those two hands. The box is made of wood – exquisite, from the looks of it, but at the same time very, very old, for Felix does not recognise the material – and its lid is clamped shut by a silver lock shaped suspiciously in the form of his family crest, its keyhole taking the form of the engraving of the symbol of the sword.

He decidedly does not feel like taking it.

"Uncle," he says, ready to protest.

"Take it," Sheldon repeats, more tenderly this time. Almost...resigned. "It is meant to be yours."

Part of Felix does not want it to be. With the way the conversation seems to be heading and how his uncle keeps looking at him, he's convinced it cannot be something that would sit well with him, despite the vague hints Sheldon has been slipping all this while. The fact that his uncle does not seem to want this for him either only speaks volumes of how absurd this will turn out to be.

Yet – part of him wants to know. Needs to know, what it is that his father has been hiding, from even the royal family themselves. What his father would've told him, eventually, had he not been at Gronder during the Great Tree Moon last year.

Felix takes the box, and tries to lift the cover, gingerly, even though he had not been asked to do so. It manages to open, and that is when Felix realises that the lock had already been undone – his uncle must've had already used the key, earlier, without him realising it.

He peers into the box, and does not know what to think as his eyes lay on the object within it.

"...What is this supposed to be?" Felix asks.

His uncle blinks. "Well. It's a dagger, of course. What else could it be?"

It is, indeed, a dagger, but that is not the point. A heat finds its way to Felix's cheeks. "That's not— Of course I know a dagger when I see one, Uncle," he huffs, indignant. He knows his uncle does not mean to insult or tease, but it irks him all the same. "I mean – what is this supposed to mean? What does this have anything to do with what you've been trying to tell me?"

Sheldon Conrad Fraldarius gives a thoughtful hum, suddenly pensive. And in that moment – just in that moment – Felix can see the resemblance between his uncle and his father, in the way they are obviously trying to think of how best to tiptoe around him, as though he were something delicate and explosive at the same time. Which rarely occurs, if at all, with his uncle, given how soft-spoken he is and how they do not have many opportunities to meet in the first place.

While Felix decides to leave his uncle to it, he glances down, again, at the dagger in the box he holds in his hands. To the untrained eye, it would easily be mistaken as some ornamental object that pretentious nobles would enjoy adding to their treasury of forgotten trinkets. But to Felix, the workmanship and value of this blade is simply undeniable. It demands his appreciation, and he willingly gives it. 

The steel is of the finest quality, its condition pristine no doubt from the countless re-forging and repairs it has undergone for the scars it bears from warfare and battles, which speaks of its durability and the care that goes into maintaining it despite its age. Which is yet another aspect that Felix cannot help but appreciate – the blade is almost certainly an old craft, likely forged hundreds of years ago. This, Felix can easily tell from the hilt and the crossguard – for the blade itself is well-maintained but everything else is not, as though the owner had deliberately kept it this way. Stray threads, though not many, hang loose from the hilt, which is inexplicably decorated with small pieces of glistening blue zircon along its length, and Felix cannot fathom why these are really necessary but it doesn't detract from the overall craftsmanship regardless. The crossguard, however, is what gets Felix drawing the lines between his uncle's words and the dagger he has passed to him.

For it has been shaped in the likeness of a pegasus, its wings outstretched like the legendary creature said to have died standing protecting a human that it had not even known.

"...This dagger," he hears his uncle say, "has been passed down from Fraldarius to Fraldarius, since the time of the Kingdom's founding. The details have unfortunately been lost to time, but...from what has been told, to me as well as your father when we were of the age to be knighted, this dagger was a gift from the very first King of Faerghus. A gift from King Loog to his sworn friend Kyphon. That is how the practice of gifting blades to other people in Faerghus had truly come about. An origin story that has, too, been lost to time, except for those in House Fraldarius."

There is nothing Felix can think of saying to that. Absolutely nothing, so he scoffs and shakes his head because _of_ _course_ it is. Of course the idea of giving other people daggers had to originate from a Blaiddyd. He can practically hear Sylvain's voice laughing at his and Dimitri's expense if he were to hear about this, because _of course_ he would.

Felix resolves not to let Sylvain ever find out about this.

"Of course, House Blaiddyd had known about this as well, but that," his uncle pauses, "that all ended ten years ago."

Again, Felix says nothing, for there is nothing to be said.

"As I had told you earlier about the fabled Maiden of Wind," Uncle Sheldon continues, ignoring Felix's frown at the title, "her true identity had been none other than the Legendary Swordsman himself, who had kept it as a secret – for as you are well aware, pegasus riders have traditionally been of the female gender, simply due to the nature of the pegasi and how they select their riders. But that is not to say that it is impossible for there to be pegasus riders who are male. Simply, ah, rarer. And during those tumultuous times, if Kyphon were to be seen riding a pegasus to the battlefield, it would've drawn much unnecessary attention to himself. Dangerous, even. So he took up a sword and fought with that whenever he was on the ground."

That, Felix can certainly understand – if the whole thing is to be believed, that is. And since he recalls that 'Loog and the Maiden of Wind' had started with King Loog and the masked knight's meeting in their childhood and ended with the knight's death shortly before the historic War of the Eagle and Lion, during a particularly tenacious battle against the Imperial militia, he surmises: "So he faked his own death."

"In a way," his uncle replies, though not sounding very certain. "Apparently, his injuries were genuinely near fatal. Of course, he survived his wounds and it proved to be a convenient opportunity to conceal his identity in the end, but if you ask me the situation could've easily turned out very differently. And I think King Loog must've acknowledged that and treasured their friendship all the more, which might've been why he gifted Kyphon with this dagger."

At the mention of the blade, Felix looks down again, and stares at the dagger lying in the antique box. He inhales – then exhales.

"...So what does this have to do with me?" he asks.

His uncle doesn't give an immediate response. Still pensive, Felix thinks. Still tiptoeing.

"The way I understand it," Sheldon says, quietly, "Kyphon truly wished to help King Loog establish a new Kingdom, to be by his side every step of the way. Yet part of him still harboured regrets over not being able to fulfill his dream – to soar the skies as one who rode with the wind – for he could no longer ride a pegasus ever again. ...His mount, you see, said to have descended from the hero Fraldarius' own, had refused to let him, ever since the day he died as the Maiden of Wind. As if it had meant to die together with the Maiden."

If Ingrid were here, she would've most certainly taken pity on Kyphon by now. Only she would know and be able to empathise with the...loss, for lack of a better term, of having a trusted mount lose that much faith in their rider, particularly so for a knight she admires so much.

A realisation then dawns upon Felix. "The pegasus you talked about earlier..."

His uncle is silent, for a moment, but it is telling enough.

"After that," Sheldon goes on, "Kyphon secretly established a rule within the House of Fraldarius: that every generation, the head branch of the family would birth two children, both to be raised as closely as possible with the royal family's own. When the time comes when they are old and sensible enough they would be presented with two choices: to serve the royal family, or to relinquish their noble titles and live however they so choose. However, there must at least be one of the two to serve the royal family, to carry on the Fraldarius bloodline and noble duty."

Felix feels his fingers twitch, gripping the edges of the box – unknowingly – ever more tightly.

"It is rare," his uncle continues, "but there have been precedent examples of some of our ancestors renouncing their nobility. I cannot attest if they have led happy lives, in the end, but – well, there's no denying that, at some point, they must've believed it was worth it."

"Uncle," Felix manages, unable to bear being silent any longer. His grip on the box tightens. "You can't be suggesting—"

"And if I am?" his uncle challenges – but he does so very gently.

Felix draws in a sharp breath regardless, feeling cold and hot all at once. Scowling, he sets the box down on the closest surface he can find with a swift _thud_ , and fixes his uncle a glare. 

"Why are you— Why did you choose to tell me this now? What purpose does me knowing any of this serve?" he asks, unable to restrain the bitterness that's creeping into his voice, coating his every word. "To, what, walk right up to the king and tell him I don't want to have anything to do with this anymore? At a time like this? Don't be ridiculous, Uncle."

After all, only less than half a year has passed since Dimitri officially ascended the throne. Less than half a year since they have begun their efforts on rebuilding a war-torn nation. Less than half a year since...since...

Since whatever it is that's happening between him and Dimitri that Felix still can't quite understand.

It's not the worst possible time, Felix tells himself, to be told about the skeleton in his House's closet. About the secrets of the Fraldarius bloodline, the very same that flows through his veins that he loathes to think about. There could've been worse times.

But it's close enough.

His uncle watches him. "So you mean to say that you're happy with what you have now?"

Felix stuns into silence as his thoughts continue raging on, unable to properly vocalise them into something coherent. He doesn't see why this is relevant, first of all. The Kingdom is recovering from a war. The _whole nation_ is recovering from a war. A nation that was once fragmented, now brought under one sovereign rule, and Dimitri is the one whom the Professor has placed the crown on. Happiness has no role to play in this, let alone Felix's own. A broken nation is not going to function on happiness alone.

And second – it does not matter, at the end of the day. It is not like Felix has not thought of it before, but after the war, after fighting by the boar's side...he has made his peace with it, and he's fine with just that. It's enough, he often tells himself. It doesn't have to be more than that.

But above all, he is sick of answering pointless questions such as this. Sick of Dimitri himself bringing up this topic, over and over, until they finally settled on a compromise. Which has led to...whatever it is that Felix hasn't figured out yet.

It's not important.

"Does it matter?" he bites out before he can stop himself, then wishes he could take it back because he is acutely aware of what that sounded like and he did not mean it that way.

His uncle frowns, features morphing into that that familiar look of pity that Felix dreads being at the receiving end of. "Felix," he sighs. 

"It's not— Don't take it the wrong way," Felix tells him, quickly, before his uncle can say any more. "It's just... We only just survived a war. It's not even a year into the new king's reign, there are still riots and rebellions going on, and I've already had to fend off two assassination attempts."

Two attempts, in a span of roughly five months. Though their execution had been laughable at best, they were attempts all the same, and Dimitri, being the person he is, took those incidents to heart regardless.

"Certainly, I did not ask you such a question without knowing what has been happening after the war," his uncle replies. "But can you truly look me in the eye and tell me you haven't already wondered about your own life and future?"

"Two assassination attempts," Felix repeats.

His uncle smiles wryly. Moves to pick up the box, but does not offer it to Felix again. He steals a glimpse at the dagger, and his features form an unreadable expression.

"Then it would seem you'll be fending off many more yet, in your capacity as the new Shield of Faerghus," and he closes the lid shut.

Felix feels the bitter anger fade, but the newfound wariness at his uncle's intentions does not. "What's that supposed to mean?" he asks, though the real question is: what is everything about this entire meeting supposed to mean?

"Simply what it is," comes the infuriatingly vague answer.

Felix doesn't know which annoys him more: that, or the fact that he's gotten used to it. He learns to stop asking, because he knows he's never going to get a real answer out of it. But there's nothing to be gained from the both of them staring at each other in silence either, and so Felix decides on a compromise.

"If this is your way of testing me, you're doing a pretty terrible job of it," he says bluntly.

"Well, I would not call it 'testing', exactly," his uncle remarks. "The stories I've just shared with you, the origin behind this dagger, and the choice that's offered to all Fraldarius children of the main branch of the family – they are all true. True, at least, to my knowledge. I was simply executing your father's duty in his stead by telling you all that I know."

"And I'll be the last Fraldarius to hear of it," Felix declares, his tone severe. "This whole so-called family tradition is meaningless. It's based off baseless rumours about people who are long dead. We don't know if these things actually happened, and we never will. Even if they did, that just makes it all the more pointless – I mean, if Kyphon wanted to fly that badly, he could've just started training as a wyvern rider instead."

That earns him a dry chuckle, though Felix fails to see why his uncle deems his words amusing. And he only gets more bewildered when Sheldon says to him in earnest: "My brother would've been so proud of you if he could've heard that."

The words, somehow, cut into Felix, sharper than any blade he has wielded, but he tries not to dwell on that. Instead, he focuses on the incredulity of them, unable to help the look that he casts on his uncle as though he had just sprouted two heads.

"No he wouldn't," he argues.

"On the contrary, I think he would," Sheldon disagrees. "You know, he actually said the same thing, many years back when your grandfather presented us our choices."

Felix snorts. "What, about Kyphon training to be a wyvern rider?" Which he really should've, if that story was to be believed at all.

"No," his uncle replies. "About being the last Fraldarius to carry on this particular duty."

Felix blinks. Then, as he often does when he fails to understand something, he scowls.

"...Why?" he says. "Because he couldn't stand the idea of someone of House Fraldarius ever turning their back on their so-called sacred duty?"

"Who knows," his uncle muses. "Perhaps it is as you say. Perhaps the reason lies elsewhere. I never asked him, because knowing didn't really matter to me, then, so we'll never truly know." A tentative pause. "But if I had to wager a guess, perhaps he didn't see the need to, with you and Glenn."

"I'm not surprised," Felix mutters darkly, not fully intending to have said that aloud.

His uncle shakes his head. "You misunderstand me, Felix," he says, gently. "Your father—"

"Is dead," Felix cuts him off, his tone icy. Steadies himself, for even he can sense his own growing agitation. He thought he had been over this, ever since the day his uncle passed him his father's belongings, but apparently – evidently – not. "With all due respect, Uncle, there is nothing to be gained from guessing what had gone through the minds of the dead. It doesn't matter what Father expected of me," _or Glenn,_ goes unsaid, "anymore. I have my own reasons for being where I am – reasons that have nothing to do with our House."

His uncle raises a silent brow, and simply stares at him. Stares, until Felix grows uncomfortable enough with his gaze and inadvertently turns away from his uncle's stormy blue eyes.

Then, Sheldon smiles. Mildly, fondly.

"I see," he says, sounding – and looking – something akin to satisfied, and Felix is eerily reminded of the Professor – of how they somehow knew something just by looking at him. "In that case, I suppose I'll simply continue holding onto the dagger, for the time being. Would that be alright with you?"

 _Just toss the damn thing in the forge or sell it off_ , is what Felix almost says, but the memory of the blade's exquisite craftsmanship stops him. In the end, he simply huffs out a rough "Whatever" as he continues avoiding his uncle's eyes.

"I see," is all his uncle says, echoing his earlier sentiment. He does not prompt Felix any further for the remainder of the time that Felix spends in the manor.

~*~

A moment in the distant, distant past:

"You may not understand now," his father once told him, "but someday you will, when you're older, about the true nature of our bloodline's duty to the royal family. It is a duty that goes beyond being the king's shield...beyond being the king's sword, or lance. A duty that only a Fraldarius can bear."

"Only a Fraldarius?"

"Only a Fraldarius," his father said as he rested his hand on his head, a gesture he has forgotten he had ever received from the man until recently.

Through the haze of the memory, he remembers pouting. "But I wanna be Dima's shield," he had said.

His father had laughed, then. Nothing more than a quiet chuckle. This, too, he remembers with startling clarity.

"I never said you can't," his father pointed out. "Just that... Well, there's more to it than simply being the king's shield."

"Like what?" he asked.

His father said nothing, at first. Only started silently stroking his head, before giving him two gentle pats, with an oddly sad smile.

"All in due time, my son."

They never talked about it again.

They never will.

Until now, Felix does not know what there is to understand. He wonders if he ever will.

~*~

Felix's return to Fhirdiad after the fruitless meeting with his uncle is something of a rather stormy affair. He blazes through the castle like a War Master decimating an army. Stomps his way straight to the royal training grounds, not bothering to even stop by his quarters to change out of his riding clothes and pointedly ignoring the flustered greetings from the servants and bows from the guards sent in his direction as he makes his journey.

It is not something they're not already accustomed to, but it startles them all the same. Felix is suddenly tempted to make a suggestion to Dimitri to have them all replaced – he has, actually, argued with Dimitri about this before ("You're the king, you can't have people guarding the castle and handling the chores being so spineless—" "I trust their capabilities, Felix, I would appreciate if—" "—an enemy attacks, a revolt, another assassin sneaks in, they won't be able to—" "I assure you, Felix, there is no need—" "—gonna be so uppity just like that, they could get themselves killed without even--" "I trust their capabilities, Felix, as I do yours." And then it ended, as though part of their routine every time they butted heads, with Felix marching off to the training grounds and slamming the door to Dimitri's office) – but only fumes more when he realises the foolishness of his own suggestion.

Fumes even more, still, when he shoves the doors to the private training grounds open and sees someone else already there.

"Ah, Felix," Dimitri greets as he stops his lance in mid-swing, his lone eye shining. "How did your meeting with your uncle go?"

Felix's brow twitches. He pulls the doors shut behind him forcefully. "What are you even doing here, you idiot?" he snaps, stomping towards where the king is standing. "You shouldn't even be here."

Dimitri's smile falters, but only slightly. "I'm training, as you can see," Dimitri replies, and Felix only feels his rage building.

"Don't act coy with me," he warns, then barks: "Put that damn lance away this instant." 

It only serves to amuse Dimitri, to Felix's growing grievances. "If you say so," so Dimitri says, but does not move towards the weapons rack as Felix expects him to. Simply continues, as he has been doing since Felix's return, to stare.

Felix stifles a groan. "Dimitri," he bites out, "I am being serious."

"Since when are you ever not?" is Dimitri's comeback, actually turning away to walk in the direction of the weapons rack this time. He places the lance away as Felix instructed. "So how goes your meeting with your uncle?"

Felix waves it off. "It was nothing of consequence, I don't even know why I was called back there at all." It is the truth, and it is all there is to it, so Felix leaves it at that. He knows a distraction when he sees one, after all, so he quickly follows with: "Don't try to change the subject."

"...I find it terribly hard to believe that Lord Sheldon would ask you to return to the Fraldarius territory so urgently, only for it to be nothing," Dimitri responds, boldly ignoring Felix's later comment.

"Take it however you want, but a fact's a fact." And the fact remains that whatever his uncle had told him was truly nothing of significance. Just a meaningless tradition that Felix has absolutely no intention of upholding. Or even bothering to remember. He wants to quickly shove whatever his uncle said out of his mind and leave it to bite dust, not talk about it – and definitely not to Dimitri, of all people. 

Dimitri, who really ought to have been sleeping in his heavily guarded quarters, not hanging around in the training grounds, of all places.

Felix decides he is going to have a word with Dedue about the castle staff management, once he sees him. But first things first.

"Why are you even here?" he repeats, gruff. "It's the middle of the night. You're supposed to be riding off to Galatea first thing in the morning."

Dimitri frowns. "I could ask the same of you. Didn't you just rush back from the Fraldarius territory? Aren't you tired from the journey?" A pause. A thoughtful one. A hesitant one. "What exactly did your uncle...?"

Felix cuts him off with a derisive snort. "Stop bringing my uncle into this when I already told you that there's nothing to be concerned about. Besides, it's not like I travelled here by foot. Fhirdiad and Fraldarius aren't that far apart anyway." And he's travelled for much longer without rest before – a day's ride in the middle of the Pegasus Moon is nothing to him by now.

But Dimitri doesn't need to know that, so Felix doesn't tell him.

Something in Dimitri's expression closes off at his response. Almost, even, upset. 

"Of course," he hears Dimitri mutter, unsure. Suddenly looking small, despite how he practically towers over almost everyone by now. "You're right, as always. I didn't mean to... Um. Well." He clears his throat. "It's nothing. Please, don't mind it."

Felix crosses his arms. "I don't trust your 'nothing'," he says, minding it very much.

Dimitri looks utterly conflicted. "You're not being very fair, Felix."

Felix is about to question what fairness even has to do with anything at this point, before he catches what Dimitri is truly trying to say and backtracks.

It's one of the things that Felix has noticed springing up between them, ever since...since the Something – as Felix has termed it in his head – started happening. Since they had their first talk, after the war. Before Dimitri had been crowned king. And ever since then, their relationship had turned...strange, for lack of a better word. Strange, but not uncomfortable, by any means. Just strange. Like figuring out the meaning behind the lyrics to Annette's songs, or the mystery that is Flayn's true age that, until now, nobody has the answer to yet. He'd be lying if he said it doesn't bother him, but it's not something immensely disturbing, by any means, so he sees no need to iron things out.

A quality that contributes to this strangeness is the fact that Dimitri has become, all at once, all the easier and all the more difficult to understand.

They communicate just fine when it comes to state affairs. When Dimitri seeks out Felix's advice and Felix doesn't hesitate to give it. They communicate just fine when they're sparring with each other, too, as a form of daily exercise, for there's barely a need to communicate at all. But in any other situation, they're at an impasse: at times, Felix feels like he's tossed back into the past, when things were simpler. When Dimitri was simpler. At other times, Felix feels like he's ramming into the walls of the Silver Maiden and has to fight the desire to, quite literally, bang his head against those same walls in frustration. Thankfully, the geographical distance and the nonsensical idea of it all makes it easy to beat the urge down, but the point still stands.

Then there are times when he's somewhere in-between, when he ends up understanding and not understanding what just happened. Filed away in some corner of his mind to return to someday, as he continues to try to figure out this...Something. It's like being on the cusp of mastering a new sword technique he once saw the Professor use before – almost grasping it, but not quite.

This is one of those times. Felix rises to it.

"...Alright," he says, giving a disgruntled sigh. "I'll tell you. If you agree to return to your chambers right after this. Got it?"

Felix tries not to think about how ridiculous he must've sounded – he can almost imagine Sylvain mocking him: "You're like his royal babysitter~" and Felix mentally punches him – instead, he thinks back to his uncle's words and how to frame them when Dimitri gives his consensus.

The request is utterly rhetorical, Felix is painfully aware of this. He knows what Dimitri wants from him, and Dimitri, he thinks, knows what Felix wants from him in turn. And even if, in the unlikely event, that Dimitri doesn't agree, Felix'll just end up dragging him back there whether he likes it or not. So. It's pointless.

It's pointless. And meaningless. And Felix enjoys neither of those things. But he does it anyway.

He can already feel the urge to ride to Arianrhod, which only serves to irritate him further.

"You have my word, Felix," Dimitri says, finally smiling.

Felix looks at him. Then heaves his frustration into another sigh. He begins to kick against the ground, battling the itch to escape.

"He was just telling me a story about Loog and Kyphon," he says, pausing. Then shrugging. "That's it."

"The King of Lions and the Legendary Swordsman?" 

_Not entirely a swordsman_ , he nearly scoffs – but Felix knows better. "Yes," he says instead.

"And, that is all that your uncle wished to tell you?"

" _Yes_ ," Felix echoes, with a note of finality.

Dimitri, as to be expected, does not take it. "Come now, Felix, there has to be more to it than that."

"I just said, 'that's it'."

"Felix," is all Dimitri says, his tone even. 

Felix considers his response. Still thinking about how to tread through this, without slipping. 

"Ugh— Fine. He told me that story because he said he had something of Kyphon's to give me."

"Something of Kyphon's?"

"Yes," Felix says, trying all that he can not to snap at Dimitri because _why_ is the boar echoing whatever he just said. "Apparently it's been passed down from Fraldarius to Fraldarius. It was supposed to be Father's—" Felix stops. Grits his teeth. _No, too much_ , he thinks, because Dimitri doesn't need to know.

And Dimitri, being Dimitri, does not help at all, no matter what he might think. "Felix," he starts.

Felix is quick enough to refuse him this. "Never mind. The point is, my uncle just wanted to pass it down to me. That's all." Then, he adds, for measure: "I still have no clue why he decided this was a good time to do it. He didn't tell me when I asked, so I just left it as one of his stupid whims."

"...I see." Dimitri hums, pensive. "So, what was it that he wanted to gift to you?"

"Nothing of importance," Felix tells him. "I didn't take it."

Silence falls between them. 

Then, as it drags on without a response from Dimitri, Felix realises his mistake. But it's too late to correct it, so he can only brace himself for the eventual question that he knows Dimitri is for sure to direct at him.

Dimitri looks at him, and sighs. "Felix, I genuinely do not understand why you are making this so difficult when it does not have to be."

This is worse than being asked directly, Felix decides. "Like I said earlier," he grinds out, "it's nothing important."

"I think it is, in fact, very important if you're trying this hard to avoid telling me."

"Will you cut it out?" Felix feels his patience finally wear thin. "I already told you what my uncle called me there for, and I already told you I didn't take the damn thing. So stop being so... so hung up about this."

"I am not—"

" _Stop_ ," Felix says, refusing to leave any room for protest. "Just listen to yourself. What are you really trying to ask me, Dimitri? Is this even about my uncle at all, or is it something else that you're worrying about?"

Dimitri's eye widens for a split second, but he recovers just as quickly. Pretends to, Felix can't help but notice, for there is no denying the uncertainty that flickers in that lone blue eye despite the determination that Dimitri has layered and kneaded into his features.

"...There is nothing else," Dimitri answers, stiff.

"Then my answer to you stays the same," Felix decides.

Dimitri looks at him, pointedly. "And what might that be, if I may ask?"

"Now who's the one being unfair?" Felix scoffs.

He sees Dimitri consider this, brows furrowed in thought. "Felix, I truly do not understand what you are asking of me."

"Then there's nothing more that needs to be said," Felix supplies, seething through gritted teeth as he tries to banish the temptation to ram himself into Arianrhod. "We're done here."

"Felix—"

"We're done here." Goddess, how many times must he repeat himself in order to get it through the boar's thick skull? "Get back to your quarters. Now. Or so help me, I'll haul you back there myself."

Dimitri should find such threats familiar, by now. At the very least, it's far from the first time Felix has had to make such a threat. So there should really be no reason why it only serves to upset Dimitri even further, evident in the way his brow droops downward along with the edge of his lips and his eye appears to grow dull. No reason at all. _The nerve of him,_ Felix inwardly growls to himself.

"As... As you wish, Felix. Um." Dimitri glances away, looking as though he is thinking on what to say. Felix simply taps his foot impatiently. "Well, I'll... Ahem. You, ah, well... You will come to send me off, I suppose?"

Felix blinks. His foot stills. Then, a newfound heat rushes through his entire body, starting from the tip of his head, and Felix cannot place it as anything else but a form of indescribable rage at Dimitri's words.

"Are you being serious?" he sneers. Then, before Dimitri can answer – because of _course_ Dimitri will try to answer every single thing, even the most rhetorical of questions – Felix says, "Of course I'm not coming to send you off. I'm going with you, remember?"

It is the arrangement that has been agreed upon amongst them, when he, Dimitri, Dedue, and Gustave had convened to discuss about the matter. Having two assassination attempts this early into his reign as Fódlan's new king, Dimitri needs to be more heavily guarded than ever during the journey, no matter how skilled he is with the lance because Goddess knows how terrible he can be when it comes to his own safety. At the same time, Fhirdiad cannot be left completely unguarded, and so Gustave had volunteered to stay behind, claiming that he would only slow the procession down if he were to join. Which left Felix and Dedue, and Dedue, to the surprise of everyone in the room, had been the first of the two to offer to remain in Fhirdiad instead of joining with Dimitri. When he had been asked why, he never gave a concrete enough reason.

Privately, when it had just been the two of them, Dedue revealed it to him, without any hesitation: "His Majesty would've wanted it this way, even if he has not voiced it out himself."

Another thing to bring up to Dedue, now, the next time they meet to discuss about the state – he does not know Dimitri as well as he might claim, if Dimitri has so easily forgotten that Felix is to be accompanying him. Something that, apparently, Dimitri has wished for.

"Oh," Dimitri says. Lapses into a brief moment of awkward silence. "Oh. Right. Of course – yes, that is indeed what we have previously decided on. I apologise, Felix, it must've, well, slipped from my mind."

"It slipped," Felix says, monotone.

"...I believe so, yes."

"The fact that I'm accompanying you on your surveillance trip to Galatea. When we've discussed about the formations of the royal guards, how we're supposed to make our way there, going over the maps countless times. It just slipped from your mind."

Dimitri sighs heavily, hanging his head in what appears to be shame. "Yes."

Felix digs his heel into the ground, placing his hands on his waist as he frowns. The unknown rage has seeped out of him entirely, leaving only an even stranger sense of emptiness in its wake. Suddenly he does not know how he ought to feel or think about this, or if he ought to be feeling anything at all.

"Look," he manages, averting Dimitri's gaze, "if... if you'd rather, I can tell Dedue to—"

"No," Dimitri cuts in firmly, his hesitation from earlier vanishing in an instant. "Please, don't misunderstand, Felix. There's no need to make rearrangements. I'm sorry to have forgotten, I truly am, but it does not mean that I do not," a pause, "that I do not... want your company. Far from it, in fact."

Felix levels him with an unimpressed stare. "My company."

"Your company, yes." Dimitri nods on, unperturbed. "I... I am afraid I do not have anything to show of it, but you have my word on the matter, Felix, I assure you of that," he says, gravely.

Felix continues to stare. The heat continues to build, until it feels as though it boils his blood and ignites the fabric of his clothes. "My company," he says again, bitterly, wishing he could simply chew on the word and spit it out. "Dimitri. I am not..." He bites into his cheek. Rephrases, because even he does not know how to finish that statement – or what that statement is supposed to be, at all. "This isn't some fancy trip to an old friend's home like we used to do. We'll be there for surveillance of the territory. To have meetings with the Count to settle their financial crisis. Not... not debating over whether you'll be enjoying someone's _presence_."

"I never intended it to be," Dimitri replies, looking thoroughly confused. "I am simply expressing how much I appreciate your counsel in such matters, and that I am relieved all the same that you'll be accompanying me."

"Yet it slipped from your mind," Felix can't help but retort.

Dimitri gives a slight wince. "Yes, and I do apologise for that," he mumbles.

Felix shakes his head, exasperated. "I'm not looking for apologies," he tells Dimitri. "Empty words don't work on me, especially when it's coming from you in your current state."

"My...current state?" Dimitri asks warily.

"Three days," Felix says, grumbling. "I was only gone for three days, and this is what I come back to."

Dimitri only manages to look even more confused. He starts to give himself a lookover, frantic yet cautious in his approach, and Felix gives a disgruntled groan.

"Stop. That's not what I meant, you oaf."

Dimitri halts at Felix's words, and glances back at him. "Then what _did_ you mean?"

Felix narrows his eyes at him. Then, without warning, he turns on his heel and heads for the doors.

"Wait— Felix?"

"Get a move on already," Felix barks as he marches on, shoving the doors open. "We don't have all night."

Dimitri hurries in his steps – Felix can hear him, but he does not need to slow his steps for Dimitri quickly and effortlessly catches up. "At least tell me where you're going?"

"You should already know," Felix says, making a sharp turn around the corner.

Dimitri is silent, for a moment, which is how Felix can tell that Dimitri does know what he is referring to. Then, gradually, he hears Dimitri's steps drift into the same silence.

So Felix stops, and turns around with a scowl, which only deepens when he sees the look on Dimitri's face. "What," Felix says dryly.

"Oh, it's nothing, I assure you," Dimitri starts, sounding as meek as he is looking now.

Felix rolls his eyes. "You look like you're being dragged off to a slaughterhouse. Don't tell me it's nothing."

Dimitri's eye widens. Almost rather comically, though Felix would rather die than admit that. "Felix, that's not— I don't—"

Seiros, he should've known the words would've completely flown over Dimitri's head, especially with as sleep-deprived as he is. "Whatever. Just tell me what's going on in your head so that we can put this behind us," Felix cuts him off.

Dimitri lets out a sigh. "Well, it's just..." A pause, as Dimitri breaks eye contact to gaze in the direction of where they're heading. "You, ah... don't have to do this if you would rather not to."

"Do what, exactly?"

The king looks to him. "...Hauling me to my quarters, as you would say."

Felix narrows his eyes. "So you'll have gone straight there even if I don't?"

Dimitri clears his throat. "My point being, Felix," he says, "is that you don't have to do things if you're not comfortable with it, in general."

Oh, they are _not_ having this conversation again.

"Screw this," Felix mutters, and, so that he can shove his point through in the brute king's thick head, channels what he believes can pass off as enthusiasm and zeal through his feet as he heatedly stomps his way to Dimitri's quarters.

"Wha— Felix?"

"Just shut up and get on with it already."

Dimitri protests as he follows, "But, Felix—"

"Ugh, you're such a pain. I said 'shut up', didn't I?"

To his surprise, that gets the job done, because Dimitri does indeed stop talking right after that. After a few moments of silence and bearing with the abrupt sensation of something trying to burst out of his skin Felix stops in his tracks and swerves around sharply, almost regretting it when he finds himself nearly slamming straight into Dimitri, who looks at him in alarm.

"Felix, what—"

"You," Felix interrupts, irritated, pointing a finger at his liege.

The hulking blond oaf of a king blinks confusedly. "Me?"

"Why did you stop talking?" Felix asks.

Dimitri looks bewildered. "You told me to shut up, didn't you?"

"You never do when I tell you to," Felix explains. It's an exaggeration, he knows, because Dimitri has probably shut his mouth as a result of Felix telling him to on more than one occasion, but most times Dimitri is too thick-headed to listen to him.

And then, as though Dimitri has heard his thoughts: "Felix," he says, gently yet firmly, "I know I may not seem like it at times, but I do actually take your words very seriously and I would like you to know that."

"Yeah right," Felix scoffs. "If you did, we wouldn't be having the same kind of conversation over and over again."

"Would you rather I do everything as you tell me to? Do you not scorn the very idea of following instructions blindly?" Dimitri challenges.

 _Goddess, this man is hopeless,_ Felix thinks for the umpteenth time of his life.

"I sensed you were getting upset," Dimitri continues, his voice growing quiet. "That's why I thought if I stopped talking, as you wished, then..."

"I wasn't – upset," Felix rebuts. He thinks of a hundred and zero ways to counter this, and eventually shakes his head. "Never mind. Forget it. You're tired, that's why you're not getting it, and why we shouldn't be talking about this now."

"You're not making this any easier to understand," Dimitri tells him truthfully, which is a sure sign that Dimitri really shouldn't be awake any longer than he already is.

"Look, just – forget it. Okay? We can talk," Felix tries hard not to grimace at the idea; he isn't sure his attempt is working well, "about this another time. But not now."

Dimitri stares. Felix stares back. Or at least, for as long as he can stand meeting somebody else's gaze directly. Because if he's trying to make a point, he might as well see it all the way through.

In the end, Dimitri is the one who concedes. "Fine," he says. "Another time, then, if that is what you would like."

And for the rest of the way to the king's chambers, for the rest of the night, as they have agreed upon they do not speak about the topic any further.

Neither of them knows that they will not speak of it for a long time after, either.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! So, well, this is my first entry for the FE3H fandom. I played the game in Jan this year and ever since then I have not been able to stop obsessing over it. As you can probably tell, I'm a Blue Lions fan. Dimitri and Felix are my fav characters, and I absolutely love the Dimilix ship *to bits* Their relationship is just so interesting? And so full of potential? So I would like to take the opportunity to explore their relationship (as well as their relationships to the other characters) in a rather silly post-game scenario that's been implied through the tags. Dimitri and Felix are starting off on a very awkward note because of that Something that happened, which has resulted in the misunderstandings and miscommunication they have going on now (to nobody's surprise)
> 
> Generally when I write fics I prefer not to use OCs but in this case I did actually need to create one in the form of Felix's uncle, whom we know virtually nothing about in canon except that he's Rodrigue's younger brother. I might or might not have been thinking of Uncle Iroh from ATLA when writing his character, but it has been a few years since I last watched ATLA, so who knows.
> 
> Let's just say that there is generally a lot of creative licensing involved in this fic. Like... a lot. For example: you can't just tell me there's a novel called 'Loog and the Maiden of Wind' and then also tell me that in 'The Sword of Kyphon' Kyphon's blade has been described as humming "like the wind" and not expect me to make some kind of stretched connection there. Just as how you can't just casually toss into the game data that Fraldarius of the Ten Elites used to be a pegasus rider and Felix can use Darting Blow (but only as an enemy unit, which still baffles me to this day) and not expect me to do something about it.
> 
> I'll be honest, updates...will not be consistent. I should probably not be posting this while I'm still battling a 6-month long ongoing author's block while also being busy with real life, especially since this is my first ever FE3H fic, but here I am anyway because the desire to just. Write about these two being complete idiots around each other before they become idiots together is just too much fun. I'll do my best, certainly, but at the moment I'm not able to make promises about updates. Hope somebody enjoys this nonetheless!


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> CW: mentions of acts of violence against children, harsh language on Felix's part, vague mentions of Dimitri's mental health, and the author's general lack of geography skills.

By the time Felix has prepared himself for the journey and makes his appearance at the castle gates, he notices Dimitri already there looking over a map with Dedue – no doubt discussing about the trip to the Galatea territory and the unplanned detours they might have to make should the already unpleasant weather go south – and he feels his blood boil. He’s about to march right up to Dimitri's face and demand what he's doing being up earlier than everyone else if not for somebody suddenly tugging him back.

"Don't touch me," is the first thing he says as he shoves the arm away.

"Well good morning to you too, grumpyface," Sylvain greets with one of his trademark winks, raising his hands in surrender. "Woke up on the wrong side of the bed again today?"

"We don't have time for you to be messing around, Sylvain," Felix tells him, scowling.

"Oh, so you have the time to be scolding His Majesty off?" Sylvain effortlessly deflects back.

"I'm," Felix pauses, throwing a sideway glance to where Dimitri is, who is trying to look over what seems to be the supplies list detailing the provisions for the soldiers during the journey in Dedue's hands, and bites down on his lip in restrained fury, "not going to be scolding him."

"Uh-huh, sure."

Felix tosses Sylvain a glare. "I'm serious," he says.

"Never said you weren't.” Sylvain gives him a nonchalant shrug. "So what were you planning on 'advising' him on this time?"

"He's always," Felix starts, then cuts himself off. Looks, again, to where Dimitri is, while Dedue is subtly trying to get said list out of Dimitri’s sight, "…working," Felix finishes.

"Well," Sylvain says, "he _is_ the king, after all." As though that justifies everything.

"I know he's the king," Felix grumbles. "Doesn't mean he needs to work himself to that extent."

Then he thinks back to what happened last night and rounds in on Sylvain.

"And I thought you said you'd keep an eye on him while I was away." Both Sylvain and Dedue did, to be exact, which is why he is going to have a word with Dedue as well before they depart for Galatea later on. But Sylvain had been particularly enthused for reasons Felix still can't decipher, when he promised Felix he would watch over Dimitri before Felix returned to his home territory, so Felix trusted his words.

He has always trusted Sylvain. Not that he'll ever admit it out loud.

"So why the hell did I come back to find that the damn boar hadn't been sleeping by the time I came back last night?" Felix asks. "He was still training into the night when I returned yesterday."

Sylvain blinks. "Wait, he was at the training grounds?"

"Obviously," Felix says with a huff. "I just said he was training into the night."

"Why was he even at the training grounds?"

"I don't know – _training_ , maybe?" Felix exclaims, throwing his hands in the air.

"Did you ask him?"

"What?"

"Did you ask him," Sylvain repeats, slowly.

Felix remembers that he had. Dimitri had told him he had been training. Then he told Dimitri to put his lance away.

Felix had thought nothing of it, then, because the boar had that habit throughout his days at the academy and during the war, and because Felix himself occasionally goes for late night training sessions. He does so to keep himself sharp and alert regardless of the time of the day, for war does not magically vanish along with the sun, and night-time is the perfect cover for ambushes and hidden traps, hindering visibility and inciting confusion. There may be shadows lurking in the dark, ready to strike at a moment's notice – and it is the one who is caught unawares who ultimately loses the battle.

Felix would not let that happen to him, for he prides himself on being prepared at any time, to fight under any circumstances, no matter how harrowing. Sacrificing the occasional sleep to keep his skills and battle senses polished will always be worth it.

So. He thought nothing of it.

"He said he had been training," Felix replies.

"And, uh, you believed him?" Sylvain asks.

Felix raises a brow. "Should I have doubted?"

"…Yes?" Sylvain says, looking slightly incredulous. "Who even trains in the middle of night nowadays? Besides you, I mean, no offense."

Felix shrugs. "He's done that sort of thing before."

"Yeah but like you said, that was like, kinda way back," Sylvain points out.

"That's precisely why I'm asking," Felix says, quietly, pressing his palm against his forehead. "That's why I'm asking, Sylvain. If... If he's showing... If he's showing even the slightest sign of... of slipping, I need to know."

"Oh," is all Sylvain says.

"Yeah," Felix mumbles back.

They delve into silence, after that. Felix is painfully aware that they're spending too much time discussing about this – the plan had been to leave the moment the sun rises, and for everyone to gather to finalise the discussion about the route before that – but he finds he doesn't know how to end it, now that he's brought it up. Telling Sylvain to forget it will net him the opposite effect, because somehow Sylvain is one of the rare few who reads and understands him so well that he can tell what Felix truly wants. Telling Sylvain that he'll talk to Dimitri about it instead is like lying to him, because Sylvain knows he won't, and because even if he does he already knows Dimitri is not going to answer him so directly.

It's not that he doesn't want to talk to Dimitri. But Felix prefers to avoid doing so if he can, because he never knows when Dimitri gets what he's saying and when he doesn't and is just pretending that he does, or when his words have the opposite intended effect on Dimitri.

All because of that talk they had before the coronation.

Then again, it's not like Felix has particularly enjoyed talking to people about anything in general, save asking Annette about her songs – but he ends up having to deal with Annette’s frantic and tearful accusations about him being ‘evil’ and ‘stupid’, for some reason – and the occasional teatime he had with the Professor – Archbishop now, his mind amends – who somehow always knew what to say to get him even mildly excited. Just mildly.

"Oh," Sylvain says again, snapping Felix out of his thoughts. "Okay, um, Felix. Listen. He's not... slipping. That's not what's going on here."

Felix feels his whole body go lax, but only very slightly. "He's not?" he asks to be sure.

"He's not," Sylvain reassures. "And he actually has been sleeping. Well, I mean – he's mostly been able to sleep at a regular schedule, ever since the war ended, and he's managed to keep at it while you were away even with the preparations for this surveillance trip going on. Dedue made sure of it."

Felix isn't sure what to say to that, so he simply nods in silence. He knows Dedue can be relied on for matters concerning Dimitri's health, so he's not particularly surprised to hear that.

"Him being at the training grounds last night, though..." Sylvain gives a thoughtful hum. "He probably had his reasons for being there. But I don't think it's for the same reasons as when he had been like that back when things were… You know."

Felix folds his arms. "He said he was training," he insists.

"Maybe he was just feeling a little cooped up these days," Sylvain ventures a guess. "When you're around, you'd make sure he'd at least take some time off to train with you during the day, right? But the past three days there's been no one who would do that, and he probably got too buried in his work to notice."

It's a sound argument. Plausible. But somehow, part of Felix still thinks that isn't the true answer, yet he has no idea why. He might never know, unless he speaks with Dimitri about it. But how is he supposed to bring up this subject without also risking running into _that_ other topic anyway?

So he sighs, and shakes his head. "I suppose," he says.

Sylvain grins, and, before Felix can pre-emptively step away, swings an arm around Felix's shoulder as he leads him down the steps. "C'mon, Fe, lighten up. There's nothing to worry about, I promise."

"I'm not worried," Felix scoffs, refraining from shoving Sylvain off because if he does there's a chance Sylvan might roll down the steps and it would be a hassle to clean up the mess left behind. And there is a ridiculous number of steps.

"Right," Sylvain says, clearly disbelieving and mocking him.

So Felix proves it to him: "I'm _not_ worried. If he slips, he risks putting the whole country in danger. We can't afford for that to happen. Especially not after the war, and especially not for such a stupid reason."

Sylvain looks at him. Searches his face. So Felix dares him with a glare that he knows Sylvain wouldn't get threatened by – not like Sylvain ever does, anyway, but it doesn't mean Felix shouldn't try.

Sylvain snorts as he pats Felix on the shoulder. "If you say so, Your Grace."

Felix seriously contemplates pushing Sylvain down the stairs this time. "I do say so," he replies, giving Sylvain's arm a gruff shrug instead. "And don't call me that."

Sylvain does not stop grinning.

~*~

Felix's growing list of problems with the world does not end with his earlier conversation with Sylvain.

"Felix," Dedue says, the moment Dimitri has gone to check on his mount, his voice low, "may I have a word?"

It's a meaningless question, because Felix knows Dedue would have either insisted or ignored him if he were to turn him down, which means either his reply does not actually matter or Dedue knows he would've agreed nonetheless. They're on what people would consider to be speaking terms in recent times, but outside of matters concerning Dimitri or the state – and the two, Felix notices, are often intertwined – they're hardly the type of people to strike up casual conversation with one another. It's not like they have any common interests aligned, anyway, so it would actually be downright weird if they do.

This means what Dedue wants to discuss with him is something important. Something concerning Dimitri, that Dedue feels Felix should know about.

This is reason enough to agree, so that is what Felix does, and they relocate somewhere else where they are less likely to be overheard.

"Well?" Felix huffs. "Out with it already. We don't have all day."

"Indeed we don't," Dedue replies. Felix genuinely can't tell if he's being sarcastic or not. "I would like to speak with you regarding His Majesty. More specifically, about how he has been faring while you have been away."

Felix gives a grunt of agreement. "Good timing, then. I've been meaning to ask you about it myself, but wasn't sure if that was what you wanted to speak with me about."

"I see," Dedue says, stoic as ever. "I will cut to the chase, then, as there isn't enough time right now to go through all the details."

A pause, as Dedue looks to Felix as though seeking his approval to continue. Felix isn't sure why Dedue sees the need for it, but he voices it nonetheless. "Go on," he says, warily.

"To put it simply, His Majesty had been rather... concerned," Dedue tells him. "He believed that there might have been urgent matters in your home territory, and that you have been trying to hide or undermine the severity of these issues in order to keep him from worrying when there are already enough pressing concerns occurring throughout the rest of the country."

"That's ridiculous," says Felix. "I wouldn't do something like that. That’s just dumb since he'll probably find out anyway."

Dedue arches a brow and says nothing.

Felix sighs, exasperated. "Okay, fine, maybe I would. Try, maybe." A frown. "I don't know." He purses his lips, then quickly waves it off. "But that's beside the point. So that's all he's been doing? Just worrying himself over nothing?"

"I don't appreciate how lightly you're treating this," Dedue says, disapprovingly. "His Majesty's concerns and feelings are very valid matters. I would not be considering them 'nothing'."

"I'm not—" Felix heaves another sigh. "I'm not – treating this 'lightly'. I just... It's stupid," he says, not quite knowing what to say.

"His Majesty's feelings are not 'stupid', either."

"Look," Felix snaps, "you know what I mean, so stop harping on it."

"That is precisely what I want to discuss with you about," Dedue replies, coolly. "This has only been one example out of the many. His Majesty has been able to manage relatively well, so far, with most of us here aiding him in his work, despite his mounting worries over governing Fódlan. But managing well does not mean we can add onto those burdens, unintentionally or otherwise. If we only add onto his worries instead of helping to alleviate them, I fear His Majesty might, eventually, be consumed by them again."

Felix feels his stomach lurch. The burn of the bile rising at the back of his throat. "Oh, so _I'm_ adding onto his problems now?" he bites out.

"I did not say that," Dedue says.

"Well you sure fucking implied it," Felix sneers. "You know how I am, Dedue. Don't you dare sugarcoat your words around me. Say it like you mean it."

Dedue seems to consider this. "I did not say that," he ends up reiterating, which has Felix groaning in disdain, because it only serves to make it worse. "I apologise," Dedue continues, shaking his head. "I should have phrased that better. I truly did not mean to say that you are adding onto His Majesty's burdens. But there is no doubt that part of His Majesty's worries concern you, particularly how he worries over whether you are satisfied with where you are now, and whether you have been restraining yourself too much for his sake."

"Not this again," Felix grumbles. "I've already given him my answer since the day he gave the title of Duke to me." And he has done so multiple times over, because the stubborn boar just refuses to shut up about it.

"Then perhaps you might want to reflect on how you have been expressing your opinions to him," Dedue suggests, gently.

"I literally said 'I am happy here' to him once," Felix says, with the passion one would expect of a dead fish on the chopping board.

"Your tone is part of said expression," Dedue advises, without a beat. The way the corners of his lips appear to twitch in amusement does not escape Felix's notice.

Damn him. And damn Sylvain, too, while he's at it. Damn the both of them.

"Is that all you want to talk to me about," Felix says, grinding his teeth.

Dedue clears his throat. Then replies, with a bow, "That is all, Your Grace."

Scratch that – damn Dedue and Sylvain both three times over and to the eternal flames with them. Thank Seiros Dedue isn't coming with them on the trip.

Felix pretends he didn't just feel his skin crawl, simply shifts in his feet and mutters out a "Whatever" before stalking away. He refuses to look back to see the expression on Dedue's face.

~*~

An example:

It had been shortly after the war, just barely into the first moon of Dimitri's reign as the first King of the Unified Fódlan.

Banditry and thievery had been commonplace even before the start of the nationwide conflict. With the structure of society fractured and the poverty situation worsening due to the ravages of war, the problem only escalated. Before, it had been a more pressing issue in the Kingdom, but during the five and a half long years it had spread across the land, left to fester for there was no governance and resources in place to handle them, and now the reports were streaming in from virtually every single territory.

They had dealt with one such group of rebels in Hrym territory during the war, and they had been too late for the former Duke Aegir. Dimitri did not wish for such a situation to happen again.

An idealistic notion, Felix had thought. There were too many bandits. Too many rebels and ruffians to deal with. They weren't just common thieves – they were organised, skilled. Deadly. They could loot war camps and storage houses, slaughter even trained soldiers and guards alike. By the time word of their presence had reached the local magistrates they had already disappeared back into the shadows, with only the carnage left behind as marks of their existence.

This was during a time when Dimitri had yet to establish an official council, as they had still been in the midst of sorting out the finance and census reports from all over Fódlan, trying to put together a list of the lords and governors who had survived the war, to know who he could even appoint the appropriate positions to in the first place. The Archbishop, also new to their job, had helped as much as they could on their end, but they could not do much for they had to be cautious to draw the line between religion and state, particularly so during such a delicate time when those who were sympathetic to the Adrestian Emperor's cause and beliefs were watching their every move. It was for the best, anyway, since Dimitri and Byleth themselves agreed that they needed to learn from their predecessors' mistakes, and this aspect was only one of the many – but it did not make the work to be done any less daunting, nonetheless.

This meant that it came to no surprise that, in a moment when Dimitri was stretched thin and word of another gruesome looting reached him, he would march out of his castle in Fhirdiad with Areadbhar in hand, declaring that he would handle the bandit situation by his lonesome. He probably would've, if Felix hadn't stopped him.

"I'll take care of it," Felix had said, while Dimitri and Dedue had been going back and forth about the issue while they were still in Dimitri's office.

"No," Dimitri instantly declined, fixing him a sharp gaze. "This is something I want to personally see to, Felix. This madness needs to come to an end."

"The only madness I see around here is the idiocy coming out from your mouth," Felix snarled.

"Your Grace!" "Felix!" He heard Gustave and Dedue, along with Sylvain and Ingrid, exclaim.

"Shut up, don't call me that," Felix told Gustave, specifically, before he whirled back to Dimitri who was looking at him, his eye wide in a mix of anger and shock. Felix continued on viciously, "Don't forget who you are now, Dimitri. You're not just some wild boar or pathetic prince anymore. You're the goddess-damned _king_. You have a nation to put back together. That is your job _now_. You can't afford to go scurrying around hunting rats like you did before."

"I swore to put an end to the cycle of the strong trampling the weak. And these rats are destroying the lives of my people, trampling on their lives as though they have to right to them," Dimitri countered. "Should I not, then, as king, protect my people from these scoundrels?"

"And if you do? Then what next? Will you seek out their next nest? Will you spend all your time hunting all of them down? What if there's no end to them? What then?" Felix argued.

Dimitri took in a shuddering breath. He did not reply immediately, choosing instead to pace about his office, back and forth. Sometimes he looked as though he wanted to just shove his way through with brute force. Sometimes... Sometimes he simply looked. At them, at the ground. Anywhere but the scroll on his desk that reported the latest damage that had been done. Hesitant, pensive.

"Your Majesty?" Sylvain tried. Ingrid did not stop him, too fixated on their liege's every move.

Dimitri did come to a standstill, then. Right in front of Felix, as he had been before.

He raised his head, slowly, and looked at all of them in the eye. "They pillaged children," he said, his voice almost a harsh whisper, masking his thinly-veiled, righteously placed anger.

Nobody responded. Nobody could.

So Dimitri turned to Felix, levelling him with a gaze so determined yet helpless all at the same time. "They pillaged children, Felix," he said, again, quieter still.

Hearing it made something unfurl in the pits of Felix's gut. He ran his gloved hand down his face. "I know," Felix told him, keeping his voice steady. "I _know_ , Dimitri. That's why I'm offering. That's why I'm _here._ You don't have to end this by yourself."

Dimitri looked at him in silent wonder. Still angry, still furious – but subdued, somewhat, for just the moment.

He could feel everybody else staring at him, their gazes like pinpricks against the back of his neck, but he shrugged them all off and only kept his eyes locked with Dimitri's. The act itself sent chills down his spine, as it always seemed to do whenever he met Dimitri's gaze directly nowadays – he had never been good with eye contact, ever since he was little. Dimitri had been no exception to the rule.

"Use me," Felix said. "You want to end the cycle of oppression? Then end it in here. End it while sitting on your throne. But don't you dare end it by throwing yourself senseless into the battlefield like some mindless beast when there are other people who can do the job for you. _I_ can do that job for you." Felix paused. Took in a breath, then sighed. "That's what it means to be king, you dumb boar."

Dimitri closed his eye, his expression pained and exhausted. When he opened it again, he looked nothing but defeated – far from the regal king he ought to be.

He looked like Dimitri, Felix had thought.

"Felix," he said, softly, "you're my advisor. A Duke, at that."

"So what?" Felix challenged. "You're the king. There's more at stake if the king goes rat-hunting all by himself than if his advisor does. It's easier to find another advisor than it is to find another king, especially if that king has no heir."

"That is not what I had meant, and I will not have you say that about yourself," Dimitri said, anger seeping back into his voice. "This is not— This is not why I asked you, before I was crowned. To take on the title of Duke, to take on the position as my advisor. It is not."

"Who cares why you asked me?" Felix retorted. "The reasons don't matter anymore. What matters is that we get the damn job done now, whether we like it or not. Do you get me, Dimitri?"

When he would look back on this incident, Felix might’ve regretted speaking up in Dimitri's office, for Dimitri only seemed to look even more distressed as their argument went on. But at that moment, Felix didn't care.

It had nothing to do with Dimitri’s battle prowess – far from it. Felix knew better than anyone else in the room that Dimitri was more than capable of handling an organised group of murderers. What mattered was that he could not have Dimitri charging into a battle that he should not be a part of in the first place. He could not have Dimitri straying from his path, spilling unnecessary bloodshed by his own hands when the job could so easily be delegated to someone else. He could not.

"Do you get me?" Felix repeated in frustration when Dimitri did not answer.

Dimitri sighed. And sunk back into his seat. "I understand, Felix," he murmured.

Later on, Felix returned to Fhirdiad triumphant without much fanfare, for resources were too scarce for such frivolous celebration. He personally delivered his report to the king on how he discovered the bandits' nest, found that they were merely a part of a larger underground organisation next, and defeated their ring leader shortly after, with only his sword and bow and a handful of soldiers whom his father had personally groomed.

Dimitri had thanked him with a smile, gave him his words of heartfelt appreciation and expressed his joy at seeing him return safely.

The smile, Felix had failed to notice, never reached his eye.

~*~

Count Galatea's manor is roughly a one-and-a-half day ride away from Fhirdiad. During the months of winter, the journey can easily stretch up to two or even three days.

The plan they have previously agreed on is to take the shortest path through the non-forested roads straight down south. Forests provide a means of camouflage, which potentially invites assassins, and that is precisely what they need to be avoiding at all costs during this journey. It is also not the ideal terrain to travel on while on horseback, which leaves only the non-forested roads as their main option. However, in the event of heavy snowfall or blizzards, poor visibility in the open roads with no means of rest or cover or even knowing if they are travelling in the correct direction can also be perilous, and judging by the movement of the clouds and the unusually frigid air this early morning, they will have to think of an alternative route that they can easily fall back on in the middle of the journey.

They head out of the castle gates, past the capital, past the settlements first – the difficult part is what comes next. Ingrid takes to the skies with two other falcon knights, spearheading patrol and watcher duty to look out for any potential threats in the distance or unexpected obstacles in their path. It's arguably the most dangerous duty to take on, for being close to the sky means putting herself in the hands of the unpredictable weather – because no matter how skilled one is with handling a pegasus, there is no guaranteed way to avoid a hailstorm or a lightning strike, and the fiercest of winds can tear into the wings of the steed, which can threaten to send it and its rider down to the ground.

Sylvain leads the march on the ground with three of his own knights, the Lance of Ruin serving – rather ironically – as their guiding light with the way it glows ominously when placed in his hands, shining amber gold and bright against his midnight black armour. At the tail end is a bow knight from the castle as well as Ashe, who was temporarily re-deployed here from Gaspard territory for this mission in particular to serve as part of Dimitri's guard.

Dimitri, as per tradition when the kings that came before him had gone on similar marches, rides in the centre. And Felix, as per tradition when the king's right-hand men came before him marched together with their kings, rides to his right. If Dedue were here, he would have been by Dimitri's left – instead, it is the commander of Dimitri’s royal guards who takes up the position.

Dimitri, as to be expected, had protested against the amount of manpower being involved in this mission, back when they had been in the midst of discussion over the preparations for this surveillance trip. He brought up the importance of defending the capital as well, that he could very well protect himself in the face of danger – after all, he had managed to survive this long – and oh, so there was truly no need to trouble Ashe over this when he must be busy with his duties as the head of House Gaspard; no need for Ingrid to specially fly back to Fhirdiad from her home to escort Dimitri to Galatea when she must be deep in her territory's accounts, helping her father and brother prepare the materials to be discussed. It was not as though they were traversing enemy territory or marching into war, after all.

Dedue had simply nodded along at the meeting, murmuring "As you command, Your Majesty", and wrote to Ashe all the same. Felix simply sent word to Ingrid and added another letter to Sylvain and only told Dimitri about it after they arrived because he knew Dimitri couldn't possibly turn them away when they were at the doorstep already. And despite Dimitri's own words, his relief at seeing them gather at Fhirdiad was palpable, so Felix and Dedue considered it a win even though Dimitri had frowned disapprovingly at them.

They had another reason for calling back Ashe, Sylvain and Ingrid, after all. One that Felix still isn't sure if it had ever been a point of consideration in Dimitri's mind, when selecting those who would serve as part of his guard for this journey.

"The skies have been clear," Ingrid says to him, privately, while supervising the knights set up camp in preparation for the king and commanders to settle down for their first meal since leaving Fhirdiad. "I haven't noticed any unusual movement in the distance, either."

"Nothing suspicious on my end as well," Ashe reports.

Felix only manages to hear Sylvain's when he strides over to Dimitri's tent, where the redhead is standing guard.

"Didn't see anything weird," says Sylvain, and Felix tenses.

He knows, logically, that these observations are a good thing. That their journey has been quiet and smooth thus far ought to be a reassurance. Yet Felix cannot help but believe things to be the exact opposite, and his insides twist as he glances in where he thinks Dimitri might be seated at, inside his tent.

It isn't something that he can openly voice out.

Sylvain, thankfully, manages to understand his silent response. "It'll be fine, Felix," he says, softly.

Felix merely grunts and mutters a word of thanks before he ducks into Dimitri's tent. If Sylvain is giving any form of reaction to Felix's outward display of gratitude Felix isn't about to hang around to see it.

What follows, however, is something even more mortifying.

As Felix expected, Dimitri is seated as his desk, busying himself with the map again, of all things, trailing a clean quill along the parchment. His plate, to nobody's surprise, has been left untouched.

Despite this, Felix marches right up to his king and slams his hand down, slapping the map out of Dimitri's hands.

"You," he demands, before Dimitri can speak, "Why haven't you eaten yet? Don't you know that everyone can't get a move on until you do?" He curls his fingers onto the parchment and hangs it out, giving it a look of disgust as though the map ought to be ashamed simply for being a map. "And for what, scrutinising this? If you wanted to know, we're right on track, and we're not changing course. There's no excuse why you haven't even touched your food this whole time."

"Felix," Dimitri manages.

"What."

The corners of Dimitri's lips actually curl up to form a small smile. "I've, ah, been waiting for you to join me," he says.

Felix stares at him blankly.

"I will not have any of us continue on our journey without eating," Dimitri continues. "That includes you."

Felix opens his mouth, then closes it. He drops the map on Dimitri's desk.

"How did you know I haven't eaten yet?" Felix asks, because even he hasn't realised it yet, and now that Dimitri has brought it up he's beginning to feel his stomach growling.

Dimitri tilts his head slightly. "We have always been having our meals together in the capital, have we not?"

"Not... 'always'," Felix begrudgingly admits, averting his gaze.

Dimitri pulls his shoulders into a shrug. "Regardless." Then he rolls up the map, puts it aside, and stands, taking his plate in hand. "Shall we, then?"

In such a situation Felix has no alternative but to follow, and it is only then that he realises that Dimitri has already had another table set up, and that another set of food has been placed on top of it.

Felix grumbles and shakes his head. "Dimitri, you shouldn't—" He cuts himself off. Shakes his head again. "I could have brought it in on my own," he says, instead.

"So you could," Dimitri agrees, still smiling. "But I can see that you have been busy, and I would like to help, however much I can, even in the seemingly smallest of ways. This has been no trouble at all."

"Dimitri," Felix says, without thinking, and he quickly realises after that that he has no idea what he wants to say.

Dimitri seems to have sensed that, for he doesn't probe Felix further – only places his own plate on the table and sits down on the fur that has been placed on the ground, and pats on the fur to his right in a child-like gesture to invite Felix to join him. And in that flash of a moment, Felix is stricken by a memory that surfaces in his mind: of Dimitri having done exactly the same thing before, when they had been young and gullible and the only pain they knew had been the aches and injuries inflicted during their training and playing together. When both their fathers had still been alive; when Glenn had still been alive, and they all still had their meals together.

Felix remembers he had always leapt into his seat next to Dimitri's, laughing and smiling all the way. He does not remember how to do that, now; only manages, slowly, to crouch down and shift, bit by bit, until he is reasonably settled and minimally comfortable.

Dimitri wears a pleased expression on his face all the same.

They are about to begin eating when Felix, out of reflex, drives his fork through Dimitri's food and starts carving out a small portion with his knife. It is nothing unfamiliar – Felix has done so even from a young age, and even kept up the habit during their academy days in the unusually numerous instances the Professor had invited the both of them for lunch – but Dimitri blinks and still looks at him in mild confusion nonetheless.

"Felix," Dimitri says, slowly, placing his cutlery down, "I have already had it tested, if that is what you are concerned about. There is no need for you to—"

"I'm not testing it," Felix lies. "I'm just checking to see if it needs to be heated over the fire again."

"The weather is particularly chilly at this time of the year," Dimitri mentions. "Food always goes cold quickly, even if it is re-heated."

Felix knows that, of course. Dimitri is only stating the obvious, a fact that is well-known amongst those who were born and raised in Faerghus. Knowing and admitting, however, are two very different things.

So he huffs and shoves his fork into his mouth and starts chewing, leaving no room for further argument. The familiar taste of the venison that can traditionally be found in the forests surrounding Fhirdiad spreads across his tongue, the meat predictably hard and difficult to bite through, having already gone cold by the time they are having their meal.

Felix swallows and nods – a silent confirmation. Then he moves on to the next item once the first hurdle has been passed: the vegetables. This, he eats with a scowl on his face, wishing he can spit the abominable thing out, but he endures. Assesses the taste, letting it engulf every bit of his tongue, searching for anything out of the ordinary and only swallows when he finds none, ending it with a grimace. Vegetables have always been the least favourite of the types of food he has been testing for Dimitri, but they are also the most difficult to test for, because poison – as his father had taught him – is most easily masked by the vegetables’ natural bitterness, and also the easiest to swap out with venomous herbs if they are similar enough in appearance.

They wait it out for a few more minutes. They both know what Felix is trying to do, anyway, so neither of them bothers speaking about it. It's ironic, Felix thinks, that it's sometimes easier to understand and communicate with Dimitri when neither of them is talking, because Dimitri's displeasure, in this instance, is evident all over his face and it is laughably easy to figure out what he’s being sulky about.

Nothing, thankfully, happens. Dimitri did tell him that the food has already been tested – but Felix knows how Dimitri gets when it comes to the practice of food-testing, so he can't exactly trust Dimitri's word on this. And even if he did, he does not find it within himself capable of trusting the words of the person who had done the testing.

And this – this is precisely the reason why he and Dedue had written to their friends.

They cannot afford another Ailell incident. Neither can they afford a repeat of what had nearly happened at Gronder, if Felix's own father hadn't stepped in right at the nick of time.

Above all, and perhaps most importantly, they cannot afford to have a second Tragedy of Duscur.

Winning the war and placing Dimitri on the throne has not put an end to civil unrest. Neither, also, has it magically resolved all of the problems besetting Fódlan. And Felix is also not naïve enough to believe that there is nobody out there who does not oppose to Dimitri's position as king and secretly plotting to dethrone him – the fact that there have already been two assassination attempts more than proves this. It will be a long road yet till the nation can truly recover. Until Dimitri can truly be recognised as king, not merely in name, but in the true meaning of it.

It is easier, Felix is starting to learn since taking over his father's position as duke, to fight in and survive a war than it is to prevent another. And sometimes, during moments when Felix has the luxury to stop and think, he ponders: _Is this what Father felt, all the time?_

He has never arrived at an answer. When it seems like he never will, he decides that it doesn't matter, and he shoves all thoughts relating to this aside and moves on with the next issue on the agenda, returning back to business.

Dimitri has not started eating yet, Felix suddenly realises.

He clears his throat. Shifts, awkwardly, in the fur. "It's passable," he says, stiffly. "You should hurry and eat it before it gets too cold."

Dimitri lets out a breath, short and quick. When Felix looks up, he notices Dimitri's shoulders shaking, and he's hiding his face behind his hand, a glimmering, mirthful look in his eye.

 _The nerve of— Did he... just..._ snort _?_

Felix glowers at him. "Are you _laughing_ at me?"

"Oh, no. Not at all. My apologies," Dimitri says, lowering his hand, not looking apologetic in the least. "It is just... I thought you said you were testing if the food has gone cold."

"I did," Felix grits out. "I just told you it's passable. That means it's not cold enough to be inedible."

It's a horrible excuse, but Dimitri lets him slide this time. "I see," he says, still looking far too amused for Felix's liking. "I shall take your word for it, then."

They mostly eat in peace, after that, slipping easily into the comfort of familiar conversation topics they've had over the course of the past six months since Dimitri's coronation. When Dimitri is focusing too much on sharing his thoughts about state affairs than eating, Felix cuts him off and reminds him. When Felix is too silent than what the conversation demands, only offering non-committal noises of disinterest, Dimitri brings up their sparring sessions, promising to have one with Felix when they have arrived at Galatea.

It is easy. And comfortable. Easier and more comfortable than most other conversation topics they’ve had, at least.

"We can ask Sylvain, Ingrid, and Ashe to join us, too," Dimitri says. "It'll be just like our days at the academy, under the Professor's teachings and guidance."

Felix scoffs. "Except that there's no Professor around, this time." But he shrugs and accepts it. "Well... I guess that works, too."

"Uh, guys?" Sylvain lifts the tent cover and sticks his head in, startling the both of them. "Not to be a party pooper, but we're kinda a little, y'know, behind schedule, here."

Felix swiftly recovers, then recoils. "And since when did _you_ care about sticking to schedule?" Besides, he's certain they can't be too far off it... Are they?

"Since I've arrived here and realised you're still not finished yet," Ingrid answers him, stepping in, but not without first bowing in Dimitri's direction and apologising for her intrusion. She straightens, then reports, "The knight have finished their meals and are ready to pack up camp at your command, Your Majesty. Ashe has already gone on to inspect the area together with them."

"Already?" Dimitri asks.

Felix eyes the amount of food left on both of their plates, then at the amount of light that manages to pour in from the opening of the tent – which does not appear to be much – and swears under his breath. They _are_ behind schedule, it looks.

"Just... give us a few more minutes to finish up," he tells Ingrid. "We'll be done soon."

She looks across the table, clearly fighting against frowning at him in Dimitri's presence. Instead, she swallows back a sigh, and bows. "As Your Grace requests, then."

Felix hears Sylvain snort from behind her and they both throw him a glare, which he effortlessly waves off.

Felix knows it has nothing to do with him personally, and that it is more of Ingrid having difficulty in addressing those who are officially of higher rank or status in anything less than a formal manner. She is exactly like that with Dimitri, whom she has known since childhood. It should not, therefore, be unexpected that she would do the same with Felix.

It does not make it any less awkward, regardless. The only comfort Felix has is that Ingrid at least still calls him by name, but only when the conversation has nothing to do with work.

"I'll leave Your Majesty and Your Grace to it," Ingrid says curtly, and heads over to the entrance. She is about to step out of the tent before she comes to a gradual halt, and turns around to face them once more. "Oh and Your Majesty?"

"Ah – yes?" Dimitri blinks.

The commander of Faerghus' finest pegasus knights serving in the king's guard breaks into a smile. "I would certainly be most honoured to take you up on your offer to spar, when we have safely arrived in Galatea."

~*~

They manage, thankfully, to arrive at their destination to stay the night: a small but bustling village right by the mid-point between Blaiddyd and Galatea, nearby the Tailtean Plains. Given its proximity to a place that holds great historical significance to the founding of the Old Kingdom as well as the abundance of forestry in the area, in addition to serving as a checkpoint for travellers heading to and fro the capital, the settlement is a popular spot for scholars, hunters and traders alike to visit, which makes it a feasible place to build a lodging house in.

Ironically, it is also what makes it a less than ideal place for the country's own king to be spotted at.

Felix had been the first to oppose, when they discussed this over during one of their many meetings over planning this surveillance trip.

"There'll be too many people," he had pointed out. "A whole group of assassins can easily blend in in a place like that, let alone one."

Dedue and Gustave both had voiced their agreement and requested for their king to reconsider. Neither of them, Felix included, needed to remind Dimitri of exactly how the first assassin had managed to slip into Garreg Mach during the coronation, the implications clear enough even if Dimitri had not already considered this potential concern.

They had watched as Dimitri re-looked the map over, pondering. But ultimately, he came to the same conclusion.

"Unless you would like the knights to march through the night during the Pegasus Moon to reach the next town," he had said, "there does not appear to be any other nearby alternative."

Felix almost felt the need to point out that they had all been Faerghus-trained and thus, more than capable of travelling under such circumstances, but when he realised that he would be asking the same of the king he decided not to refute Dimitri's point, even if that hadn't been Dimitri's intention when he brought it up. They could, technically, set up camp instead as another viable option, but that, too, came with its own set of risks with the king so exposed. And going by alternative routes were already out of the question by then – either taking too much time to travel, or drawing too much attention to themselves, such as by taking the route that would have them pass through Fraldarius territory.

In the end they had little choice but to mutually agree on placing this village on their route. Which had also meant, of course, necessitating certain measures.

First: they cannot all be seen entering the village together. Not only would it shock the local villagers to see people dressed in armour and armed with weapons marching into their home, it would also put them all at unnecessary risk if any assassins or rebels were to hear word of it.

Second: only a select handful are to enter the village, in order to maintain the usual flow of visitors entering and leaving it. An unusually large movement of people is bound to rouse too much suspicion, which is precisely what they are trying to avoid.

Thus far these two measures are relatively simple to execute. Selecting the people who will be accompanying the king and staying together with him at the same tavern does not require much consideration, and none of the soldiers dare to oppose Felix's choice anyway. Though splitting the knights up does create a crack in their defensive formation, it is only for the duration of the night and their liege will still be considerably guarded throughout his stay, if they plan it out carefully enough. These, so far, have been easy enough to tackle.

It is the third measure that gives Felix grief.

"Welcome to the Tailtean Tavern!" comes the expected greeting from the staff standing behind the counter. "How may I be of assistance today?"

"We'd like a room for two, please," Dimitri says, giving her a smile that he usually reserves for when he's speaking with his staff at the castle. "If you would be so kind to oblige."

Felix refrains from rolling his eyes and giving Dimitri a jab in the ribs, because _of course_ he would so conveniently forget about being too polished and polite in his speech. Instead, he folds his arms and tucks away his hands to hide his twitching fingers, trying his best to maintain a neutral expression as he throws sideway glances in every direction of the establishment possible.

There are more than ten people at present, from what he can already tell, mostly seated at their tables with drinks in hand and chatting the night away. None of them, so far, have even bothered to look in their direction – which is decidedly a good sign, but not indicative enough for Felix to begin relaxing anytime soon.

He doesn't count Ingrid and Ashe among the headcount, who are currently seated in two opposite corners on the floor, keeping a keen eye on their surroundings. He meets their eyes, briefly, but no form of acknowledgement passes between them. Not even when he notices Ingrid holding a sandwich in hand – though the urge to tease her is tempting.

"Certainly!" the staff says chirpily, already grabbing a set of keys and pulling out a form. "I'll just need your details as part of the documentation process."

"Of course," Dimitri replies. "I'm Winfred. And this is my companion..."

"Edward," Felix finishes dryly.

Dimitri nods. "We're scholars from Derdriu, seeking to understand more about the history of Faerghus and the origins of the Kingdom. After reading about the War of the Eagle and Lion, we just knew we had to come here, to the Tailtean Plains, where the historic battle had taken place."

It was a cover story they had come up with before even departing Fhirdiad. They decided against saying that they were from the Old Kingdom, as it would've been too risky and could potentially blow their identities if someone scrutinised Dimitri too carefully and realised he looked a bit too much like the current king, which boiled down to either Adrestia or Leicester. They had gone with Leicester in the end, as Dimitri felt that saying they were from the Old Empire could unintentionally create a form of unease, given how recent the war had been. And they had visited Derdriu once after the end of the war, so they knew at least enough about it to hopefully be convincing.

The next they had to settle was the issue of their false identities. It had taken a while to decide, but eventually they agreed that they could pretend to be academic scholars who have recently gained interest in Faerghan history and culture, as their own knowledge about their homeland could come in handy as well as ward off any potential suspicion about why a pair of Derdriu scholars could know so much about Faerghus.

They have the attire to pass off the act, too: a simple wool top of the highest quality for Dimitri, while Felix had worn his usual turtleneck, with the both of them adorning a plain fur coat that they had prepared just for this occasion. Felix had helped style Dimitri's hair until it mostly covered the right half of his face and handed a piece of gauze out to Dimitri – ("Just say that you lost it in the war," Felix had told him while putting Dimitri's hair to shape, after Dimitri had swapped out his usual eyepatch for the gauze taped over the eye) – and he had his own tied in a loose ponytail using a white ribbon, draped over his shoulder.

"Wow, all the way from Derdriu, huh? Must've been a long journey." The staff beams as she steps out from her counter, holding up their keys in hand. "Best not to keep you waiting then. You two must be exhausted. I'll show you to your room straight away."

"Thank you. We really do appreciate it," the king of the nation replies.

"No, no, this is what we do for a living, after all."

They head up two flights of stairs and are led down a hallway. About halfway through, the staff speaks up again: "Say, you two said you're here 'cuz you heard about the legend of King Loog and his sworn-friend Kyphon, right?"

"...We did," Felix cautiously responds.

"Well, then would you like to join in on a tour to the plains tomorrow?" the staff offers. "We've got our fellow villagers as tour guides around here. They love telling the tales about the First King, and we give them extra coin, too, so they're always willing to help out. Oh but don't worry you won't get charged for it at all! And you might learn a lot from them!"

"Ah, that sounds like a wonderful idea—" Felix instantly glares daggers at Dimitri while the staff has her back facing them, "—but I'm afraid we'll have to turn down your kind offer. I... Well, the both of us, rather… We aren't exactly the best with, uh, too many people."

"Aw, you're sure?" The staff sounds mildly disappointed. "We can make arrangements for a guide just for the two of you, if that's what you'd prefer."

"Thanks but no thanks," Felix replies gruffly. "We like to do things on our own pace. Your guide might not be used to that."

"What Edward means," Dimitri kindly explains, "is that we tend to spend many long hours in one place, learning all that we can before we can be satisfied. We're worried we might end up wasting a lot of the guide's precious time, as a result."

"Hmm, well all right then," the tavern staff concedes, coming to a stop before a door which Felix presumes to be their room. "But if you ever change your mind, just let us know and we'd be happy to help you out."

She hands them their key, bids her farewell for the night and turns around to return to the ground floor without waiting for Dimitri and Felix to enter their room. They watch until her figure has disappeared completely down the stairs before turning to the door.

Dimitri holds out the key to the knob. Felix snatches it away.

"Fe—"

Felix narrows his eyes in pointed silence.

"Edward," Dimitri bashfully amends. "What are you doing?"

"I'll open it," Felix mutters.

Dimitri is quiet, for a moment. "I hardly see the need to, when I am fully capable of doing so myself," he says, eventually, but steps back regardless.

Felix doesn't bother reminding him that it's standard protocol for one who is supposed to be guarding the king as he unlocks the door. He's sure Dimitri is more than aware of it, anyway, judging by his response, and is just being... _Dimitri_ about it.

The door opens, and Felix immediately steps in to make a quick sweep of the place. Their room is a quaint, simple one, with two plain beds separated only by a small desk that has an oil lamp on top of it. It has all the rudimentary facilities that Felix would expect of an inn in this particular area of the country – considerably miles better, in fact, than most other taverns Felix has stayed in before – and it is even larger than he initially expected, so he has no complaints whatsoever.

Most importantly, the room is clean. Felix would know, having checked about every corner and searched through all the potential hiding spots that can fit even a young child.

When he's done, he sends a sharp nod in Dimitri's direction. His liege slowly enters, closing the door behind him, and when he does Felix exhales through his nostrils and sits on the bed that's nearer to the entrance. "Finally," he mutters under his breath. He tugs at his hair tie and runs his fingers through, combing it down. "You'd better hurry and wash up before going to bed, _Winfred_. I'll still be up for a while, so you can—"

"Edward."

Felix pauses. Raises his head only to find Dimitri still standing by the door, and pulls his features into a frown when he sees the expression on Dimitri's face. He recognises that look anywhere – brows furrowed and bright-eyed, with a determined curl to the edges of his lips.

"No," Felix answers before Dimitri even has the chance to ask.

Dimitri has the gall to pout at that. Seiros, he can be utterly, absolutely shameless at times, and this is clearly one such moment. "But I haven't even—"

"I already know what you want to say," Felix interrupts, folding his arms as he crosses one leg over the other, his scowl hardening. "And the answer is still no."

Dimitri seems to hold his breath before letting it out in a tired sigh. "It will only be for a little while," he tries.

"We're on a tight enough schedule as it is," Felix counters.

"Surely we can work something out. An hour or two should not affect our schedule too detrimentally." Dimitri pauses. "We can wake and depart for the plains before even the crack of dawn, if you are concerned about keeping to time."

The boar must be out of his mind if he believes Felix is going to agree to something like _that._

He grabs the nearest pillow he can reach for and starts patting it down furiously. "We've had a long day," Felix says, his voice low. "And tomorrow is going to be another. You are _not_ compromising your sleep on something like this when we can always come here another time. You know that."

"I do," Dimitri agrees. "But did we not come here, all the way from Derdriu, to visit the plains in the first place, Edward?"

Felix's mind goes blank as he considers this. Thinks of how to debate with Dimitri, but realises he cannot think of a way around it because there is no way they can avoid travelling to the plains and not rouse suspicion for it, and fights the urge to scream into the pillow in his hands because this situation could've been so easily avoided if Dimitri had lied to the tavern staff that they had already visited there. He wonders, vaguely, if Dimitri had planned for this to happen, but then quickly shoves the thought out of his head when he recalls ultimately agreeing to this cover story when Dimitri had suggested it, no matter how reluctant he had been.

He bites on the inside of his cheek and tosses the pillow aside. "Fine," he grumbles. Then repeats, a little more loudly: " _Fine._ But I'm only allowing an hour, nothing more."

Dimitri finally flashes him a tiny smile, his shoulders sagging in relief. "Thank you, F— For allowing this, Edward."

"On one condition." Felix rises to his feet. "No forcing yourself to wake up early just for this. I would know. If you do, then I'm calling it off and dragging you back."

"Certainly," Dimitri replies almost instantly, which has Felix suspicious because there's a chance Dimitri is simply agreeing for the sake of it and not really actively listening to him.

"And no tours," Felix hastily adds. "They'll just ruin everything. So don't."

Dimitri actually laughs at that – a satisfactory indication that he has, indeed, been listening at least.

"If that is what you would like," he says. Then, at last, he steps away from the door now, and walks over towards Felix with a tender smile still plastered on his face. "Thank you, truly, Edward. I appreciate all that it is that you have done for me."

"It's just a small tweak to the plans," Felix mumbles. "Nothing of real significance."

"I meant more than just that," Dimitri says, in painstaking measure.

Felix bristles. Then turns his face away, burning holes in the wall with his glare instead. For better or worse, he knows what Dimitri is referring to, and his fingers itch with the urge to pick the pillow up and toss it in Dimitri's face.

"Whatever," he replies. Just as he's said it, however, Dedue's words – for whatever inexplicable reason – suddenly surface in his mind, and he snaps his jaw shut as he shakes his head. "I mean," he tries to avoid grinding his teeth, and miserably injects more heat into his words in an attempt to convey the message he wants to send across to Dimitri, " _whatever._ It's... It's fine. You don't have to... thank me. Or anything."

"Even still," is all Dimitri says, and when he leaves it at that Felix wills himself to raise his head to look at him.

The expression on his king's face is a thoughtful one. Almost even melancholic, as he often finds Dimitri being. As though having this conversation alone has turned into one of his state affairs: something that needs to be managed with utmost care and consideration, lest it all crumbles apart to devastating consequences. And Dimitri looks to him like he often does during council, silently seeking his opinion. Trusting Felix to not let everything fall to ruins, with his mere words alone – as Dimitri has once said to him before.

Felix tries to battle the shiver trickling down his spine by shifting in his feet. "You give me too much credit," he grumbles.

"Not quite enough, if you ask me," Dimitri tells him earnestly.

"It is for me," Felix replies without thinking, his eyes widening as soon as he realises the words that have just flown out of his mouth of their own accord. He shoots Dimitri a scowl. "Shut up."

Dimitri blinks. Smiles, a little awkwardly. "I didn't say anything."

"You're mocking me in your head," Felix says murderously.

"I am doing nothing of the sort, I assure you," but the way Dimitri's lips curl up further only serve to betray him. Damn him, Felix curses inwardly.

So he gives into his reflexes: he tears through Dimitri's knapsack that has been placed on the desk and hurls Dimitri's change of clothes at him, who looks taken aback for only a split second before catching them effortlessly.

"It's late," Felix seethes. "You should be getting ready to go to sleep."

"I suppose I should," Dimitri concedes, still smiling like a buffoon. The fact that Dimitri is so readily agreeing to whatever Felix is saying like this only makes Felix fume even more.

"Then stop standing there like an idiot and get to it," Felix tells him, irritably.

Dimitri nods and makes his leave, heading to the shared restroom with his clothes in hand. When Felix hears him close the door, he drops back down on his bed and heaves a frustrated sigh into his gloved hands, shaking his unruly hair out of the way. And he wonders, not for the first time in his life, if the nonsense he has to deal with will ever finally learn to cease.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going to be frank, I did not expect to be able to put up this chapter this soon - but here I am after all, I guess? Haha
> 
> I'm so very pleasantly surprised by the amount of feedback I've gotten from the first chapter, and I'm very grateful to all of you out there who have read this and even left a kudos/comment/bookmark/subscription or a combination of the above. Thank you all! =^ ^= I hope you've enjoyed this chapter and will continue to enjoy the chapters that follow.
> 
> I would also like to take this chance to inform you that I've made some minor edits to the first chapter - nothing major, just some re-wording to make the timeline for this story clearer. Essentially, this fic takes place during the Pegasus Moon in the year following the end of the war, i.e. 6 months after the game's ending in the Azure Moon route. Dimitri was officially crowned as king during the Horsebow Moon, i.e. 1 month after the ending. A lot has happened over the course of the 6 months, and Felix in particular has matured a bit - I hope to express that growth on his part in his conversations with the people around him. He's trying very hard. Of course, there's still a lot more room for him to grow, which is what I'd like to explore here!
> 
> ~~~
> 
> Some extra footnotes pertaining to Felix and Dimitri's false names:  
> \- Edward (Felix): meaning "prosperous/fortunate guardian/protector/defender". This is a reference to the meaning of both Felix's first name and Dimitri's middle name.  
> \- Winfred (Dimitri): meaning "friend of peace", referring to the ideal that Dimitri would like to live up to as king. I've come across sites that mention that Winifred, sometimes considered the female equivalent of the name, also means "blessed reconciliation". I think no further explanation needs to be given for this ;)  
> \- I might or might not have intended for a reference to EdWin (from FMA) when thinking of Felix and Dimitri's false names. Even I don't know myself. What I can tell you, however, is that the idea of a Dimilix FMA AU has recently been entertaining me a lot and the mental image of Dimitri accidentally breaking Felix's automail while actually trying to repair it and Felix fuming - as a reversal of an aspect of Edward and Winry's dynamic - amuses me to no end.  
> \- Dimitri and Felix are still referring to each other by their false names even while in their room simply because walls have ears, and Felix isn't going to risk it.  
> \- Dimitri is the one who picked out their names. He had a lot of fun doing so. Felix, meanwhile, threatened to maim anyone who dared to use his false name in public (Dimitri is a notable exception to this, however).


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> CW: mentions of blood, use of violence against a child, and very, very vague implication of self-harm. If the last of the three especially makes you uncomfortable, please skip everything following the line "Felix abandons all thought" and jump straight ahead to the next scene. As the scene involving the second warning is described in a bit more detail compared to the previous chapter (nothing graphic, I promise), if you are concerned please skip everything following "Felix didn't need to draw his sword" and jump straight to the next scene.
> 
> There is a blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment that may be read as Yuridetta, but it is extremely mild/very far into the background and there is only one instance of this. At this point, I have not planned out future scenes in such detail to determine if there'll be more of such moments, so I have decided not to include this in the tags for now.
> 
> Please also take note that this contains a point in the story where some of the tags start to make sense and the plot itself does not. Things are going to get wild from here on out. You will know when that point happens later in the chapter.

The first time it had happened, it had been on the day of Dimitri's coronation.

It was customary, after the Archbishop placed the crown on Dimitri’s head, for the various lords or family heads throughout the land who had gathered at the monastery to congratulate the newly crowned king. This time, however, the scale had to be grander, for Dimitri was not merely the king of Faerghus – but of all of Fódlan. The first in over four hundred years to receive the title that had been lost in history due to, ironically, the independence of the very Kingdom that Dimitri had hailed from. What this had meant for Dimitri was that he not only had to meet with the local lords and governors who were still struggling with the post-war situation in their own lands – anxious and hopeful as they had a revenue in Dimitri to whom they could finally pour their grievances – but also with representatives of the foreign powers that lied beyond Fódlan's borders.

In other words, there were a lot of people to meet and whose names they needed to have a record of. Too many, in fact, and in such limited time, which meant even greater anxiety amongst the lords as they approached him to send their greetings, not-so subtly brushing shoulders against each other as they shoved forward, wearing tired, plastic smiles on their faces all the same. And when they bowed, they sent Dimitri their well wishes and heartfelt congratulations to him for emerging victorious in the war, made promises or some such to share his burdens in managing Fódlan, and vocalised their beliefs that Dimitri would be a virtuous leader to them all.

Hypocrites, the lot of them. Grabbing this golden opportunity to speak with Dimitri and trying to buy his favour with mere words. It wasn't even the occasion to be swearing oaths of fealty, but the "greetings" from a handful of them had been long and pretentious enough to be considered one. It disgusted Felix to no end as he bore witness to all of this nonsense, wondering when the torture would come to an end.

The only people Felix did not consider to be in the same abhorrent lot had mostly been the heads of the more prominent noble families in the Kingdom – the same who had stayed loyal to House Blaiddyd throughout the war and fought against the Faerghus Dukedom and the Empire – and the few of their classmates who had taken over the positions from their parents or attended the ceremony in representation of them. This, though Felix would never openly admit it, also included the former leader of the Leicester Alliance, who more than surprised everyone in attendance when he arrived flying on the back of his white wyvern and ended off the drawn-out customary greetings with a wink and smile and said: "House Riegan sends its warm wishes to the King of Fódlan."

The formalities of the coronation drew to a close, and the lords made haste to begin their journeys home, equally satisfied and equally not in even having spoken with the king. Some had elected to remain behind, hoping for another chance, and their wait had not been in vain, brazenly intercepting Dimitri when they spotted him being escorted to the dining hall where the unofficial banquet meant only for those of the Blue Lion House and their Professor was to be held.

It had mostly been Felix and Dedue who tried to convince them to leave and to send their concerns through letter instead, but Dimitri chose to listen anyway, and he did so intently, respectfully keeping silent as the lords spoke of the tragic upheaval their territories were in. It had gotten so out of hand that Dimitri, in what Felix considered a gesture of selflessness of the highest magnitude of idiocy, had nearly called the entire dinner off simply so that he could have time to listen to their pleas and work on a solution for them.

Felix would've stormed off and let him be if it hadn't been Claude, of all people, to indirectly stop him in his tracks.

"Sorry for interrupting the lovely discussion you're having with the king," he had said. "Just wondering if I heard you right – did you say you're from Almyra?"

"That's right," the man replied. He was the last of the pests who had remained behind at the monastery in order to create the window of opportunity to gain Dimitri's attention.

"And you said you were sent here by the king himself, right?"

"That's right," the man repeated.

"Cool," Claude said, smirking. "So I guess he told you to bring that shiny little thing you have there under your sleeve as a tribute, too, then?"

The man froze as everyone glanced in Claude's direction. Felix swore and drew out his sword in the instant the man managed to recover and hurl the aforementioned object at Dimitri, parrying it and knocking it flat while Dedue lunged and tackled the false Almyran representative to the ground, who screeched and kicked and struggled against Dedue's sturdy hold.

Claude gave a low whistle. "Nice reflexes you've got there, Your Grace."

Felix glared but said nothing.

"Claude," Dimitri finally spoke, gaining his breath, "what—"

"I'll explain later," Claude said. "Let's just decide on what to with the guy first. We have a banquet to be getting to, after all, and it wouldn't be very kingly to keep everyone waiting. Besides, I'm _starving_."

It had taken a while, but eventually Dimitri decided, after privately consulting with Byleth and Seteth seeing that the incident had taken place at the monastery grounds, to have the assassin locked in a cell underground, leaving the detailed interrogation until later. With how the man screamed at the top of his voice – "Heresy! Heresy! Death to all of you, minions of a false goddess!", he had shouted – and refused to listen to reason, displaying outright aggression to anyone who tried to get him to talk, interrogating him immediately wouldn't have been very useful anyway.

While Seteth handled the administrative affairs related to this, the rest of them returned to the dining hall, where everyone had been waiting, wholly unaware of what had just transpired.

The tables and benches had been rearranged such that they formed one large banquet table collectively and they could all sit as one class together, with two seats reserved for Byleth and Dimitri at right in the middle of the upper side of the tables. And when Fódlan's recently-appointed Archbishop and King entered the hall, everyone stood from where they were, cutting off their chatter in order to applaud at their presence while Dedue silently moved past to check on the chefs.

Dimitri met them all with a light smile on his face and thanked them for the warm welcome, and the banquet kicked off to a start. The dishes came, two by two, and soon the entire table was filled with food and drinks. Most of them had been Dimitri's favourites, but at his insistence when he had found out about the menu beforehand the chefs also ensured that the food was made to everybody's liking.

They started digging into their food at roughly the same time, some noticeably faster than others – Caspar and Raphael and Balthus, mainly, while Lindhart looked too tired to bother with Caspar's lack of table manners and Ignatz merely watched Raphael from time to time to make sure he didn't accidentally choke. Hapi appeared to be trying her best not to sigh. Lorenz, Ferdinand, and Constance, whose seats had been pre-arranged to be next to each other, simply shook their heads at the familiar sight and ate their food in a sickeningly delicate manner, which Sylvain deliberately tried to poke fun at from across the table. They skilfully ignored him, which prompted Sylvain to fake seeking comfort from the person seated right next to him, but Ingrid had been too preoccupied with the bountiful varieties of food on the table to notice, her eyes glittering as she helped herself to them. Sylvain, thankfully, knew better than to try his luck with the person seated to his other side – Yuri would've never let him live this down, if he had – and just shrugged the whole thing off. Felix decided he needed to have a word with whoever had thought of the seating arrangements and reward them purely for thinking of putting Sylvain and Yuri next to each other, because it was working splendidly.

They were even thoughtful enough to have put Bernadetta next to Yuri – the shy girl Felix had known her as was being completely at ease despite the number of people simply being present for this private banquet, freely laughing away and even flushing at Yuri's words. Felix hadn't even the faintest clue that they had known each other at all. Dorothea seemed to eye Yuri suspiciously for some reason, but nonetheless smiled and looked pleased that Bernadetta was enjoying herself.

What had Felix raising a brow at, however, was Claude sitting at Dimitri's left. Byleth sitting next to Dimitri was no surprise, and neither was Petra being seen among them, having recently been crowned Queen of Brigid herself. While the rest of their class had seemed perplexed as well, Hilda didn't seem the least bit bothered – or perhaps it was more of she didn't particularly care – and casually spoke to Claude over the table in a loud voice despite being seated a little bit further away from him. Marianne, in contrast, ate quietly next to her, unfazed by her behaviour.

Dimitri himself hadn't even so much as blinked when Claude sat down next to him, meaning he had fully expected Claude to do so – for reasons currently still unbeknownst to Felix. Felix scowled into his plate at that thought and poked at a piece of corn, watching the tooth of the fork pierce through it. As the dinner went on, he noticed Dimitri and Claude engaging in conversation with one another, but he was too far away to be able to hear them, so he had no idea what they were discussing about, either. But he figured the topic of the assassin from earlier must've been touched upon, at some point, which only made Felix twist his fork into his food like how he felt his stomach curl up into itself.

"Are you not going to eat, Felix?" Flayn spoke up from his left. "The food is absolutely delightful this evening. It would be such a waste if you do not partake in it. I heard Master Chef Doodah – that is, Supreme Chef Dedue – even personally tasted the dishes before deeming them ready to be served!"

 _What the hell is 'Doodah' even supposed to mean,_ Felix thought to himself. It had been so ridiculous that Felix could not even give Flayn a proper reply; only made a grunt as he picked up a meat skewer and started chewing on it if only to get her to stop speaking with him.

It did not work.

"Most excellent!" Flayn said with a clap of her hands, obviously pleased to see Felix eating properly at last. "Now you must try the fish, next! It is so incredibly fresh today I can scarcely believe it."

Felix heaved a muffled sigh as he chewed ferociously.

"Oh, I agree completely, Flayn," said Ashe, beaming. "The food is simply amazing today. I'm so glad Dedue was put in charge of designing today's menu."

"As am I," Flayn replied, smiling brilliantly.

The two proceeded to sing praises about Dedue's cooking over Felix, who sat right in-between them, as though he were invisible. Not that he particularly minded being treated invisible in this case, and he had fully expected the banquet to get noisy with conversation in general anyway, so it was fine being like this as long as they didn't drag him into their passionate discussion.

It had been fine – up until someone else walked up to him.

"Forgive my intrusion, Duke Fraldarius," one of the church's priests had said, "but Lord Seteth is requesting for your assistance with a particular matter after the banquet is over."

Felix swallowed down his food as well as another groan along with it. "You couldn't wait until it's actually over to tell me this?" he muttered.

"Lord Seteth sent me to deliver the message," the other man said, "and then I am to report back that you've received it."

In other words, Felix had no choice but to go, and he would have to go immediately once the banquet was over. Great.

"Did he tell you why? Or what it is about?"

"No," the priest answered stiffly. "He told me you would know the reason, if I came here to inform you."

Of course that would be what Seteth would say, to a messenger who was completely uninvolved the whole thing. Felix resisted a scoff and gave the priest a nod of acknowledgement, and the robed man went on his way after that.

"What need does my brother have of you?" Flayn asked, after looking to make sure the priest had left the hall. "It is so strange that he would ask you to meet with him for a matter that sounded urgent and yet can be held off until the celebration is over."

Felix had a very good idea why, but he wasn't about to divulge it. Flayn didn't need to know what had happened earlier, before Dimitri had arrived at the dining hall for the banquet. Not yet, at the very least; the news would have reached everyone, sooner or later, but it didn't need to be revealed just yet. And Felix sure as hell wouldn't be the one to do it.

The dinner carried on in relative peace, after that, and when it was finally time to call it a day Felix did not head to where Seteth was instantly. Instead, he waited until they had all made their ways to their respective old rooms in the monastery, where they had slept and rested in during their days at the academy as well as during the war, and it was only when he had made certain that Dimitri at least was safely accompanied to his own temporary abode that Felix had made his way over to Seteth's office.

He knocked sharply on the door. "It's me," he said, when he realised knocking alone would not serve as a good enough notice of his arrival.

The door opened. It had not been Seteth who opened it.

"Hey, glad you could make it," Claude greeted with his usual crafty smirk on his face. "Come on in. We were just about to start."

"...What are _you_ doing here?" Felix asked as he stepped into the office, throwing Claude a wary look. "I thought this was about—"

"It is," Seteth answered calmly. "Please, close the door first, before I explain further."

Claude shrugged and did as Seteth requested, while Felix simply side-eyed him.

Seteth gave a curt nod and began speaking. "First, allow me to thank you both for coming to this unplanned meeting despite the incredibly tight schedule we've had today. I'll keep this as short as I can, as I believe you both must be exhausted from the day's events." He looked to Claude, then. "Particularly for you, having travelled from so far."

"Eh, it was nothing," Claude replied. "I've got my wyvern, after all. Besides, me coming here aligns with my own goals, too."

"And that would be what, exactly?" Felix questioned.

"That can be a separate matter to be discussed between the both of you another time," said Seteth, which was enough to get Felix to stop probing but not enough for Felix to stop pondering about it, regardless.

The scion of House Riegan kept too many secrets to himself. Could deflect away from the topic if it encroached upon those secrets without batting an eye, masking his true intentions under the guise of casual talk. Dishonest and difficult to read – qualities that Felix did not like dealing with.

"Now," Seteth continued, "let's move on to the subject at hand." A brief pause, as his brows furrowed further. "Regarding the...assassin from earlier."

Felix did not miss the slight beat of hesitancy in Seteth's tone. "You don't think he counts as one?"

The archbishop's right-hand man gave a strained sigh. "I do not think he is intended to be one," he admitted.

"But he tried to—"

"That," Seteth gently interrupted, "might've been intended to serve as a warning to the church. Rather than an actual attempt on King Dimitri's life."

Claude raised his brows slightly. "A warning to the church?"

Seteth crossed his arms. "Even though the dreadful war is over, there are still remnants of those who sympathise with the former Adrestian Emperor's cause and wish to see the Church of Serios fall to ruin. Given the relationship the new King of Fódlan has with the current archbishop, as well as taking into consideration the fact that King Dimitri and Archbishop Byleth had both been involved in Edelgard's defeat... Well. Needless to say, I am not the least bit surprised that something like this has happened."

"But doesn’t it strike you as odd?" Claude asked. "If they really wanted the church gone, they would've taken any opportunity they have at chipping away the church's defences instead of giving you a heads-up. Unless... Getting everyone all high-strung and on the hyper-alert is exactly what they were trying to go for. You know, like what happened with the Rite of Rebirth ceremony six years ago?"

"I'm afraid that it may not be that simple." Seteth's expression turned grim. "The man called himself Almyran and was prepared to falsely implicate even the Almyran King himself. That means the instigator is willingly and readily attempting to plunge all of Fódlan into another war yet again, one that may have more far-reaching consequences than what we're only beginning to recover from. And I doubt this will be the end to their such attempts."

Felix's blood ran cold. Then it thrummed as though boiling under his skin. "You mean to say that until we find out who exactly the instigator is, the king will constantly remain as one of their key targets."

"As will the archbishop," Seteth added. "But yes. That is why I called you here to bring this to your attention."

Which was admittedly useful and also not very useful to know all at the same time when they didn't know who exactly they were dealing with in the first place.

Felix shook his head. "Why not interrogate the man we captured from earlier?" he suggested.

Seteth was quiet, for a moment. "We can't," he said, solemnly. "He is dead."

Felix had no idea what to say to that.

Even Claude had seemed mildly taken aback by the news. "Dead?" he said. "But... How?"

"We're not entirely sure," Seteth admitted. "One moment, he had been muttering incomprehensible words and blaspheming the church. The next, he suddenly collapsed, and was declared dead right there and then. Professor Manuela is still examining the body as we speak."

"...So, whoever it is that sent him had also planned to silence him," Claude deduced. He made a sound that sounded like a mix between a sigh and a low whistle. "Whew. I'm starting to see why you're calling this a warning, Seteth."

Felix did, too. If they had succeeded in killing Dimitri on the monastery grounds – on the day of his coronation, no less – the whole of Fódlan including the church would be tossed into complete disarray. If they did not – which was exactly what they had intended, going by the looks of things – then they could easily dispose of the assassin they had sent and then try it all over again. Which meant whoever they were had the means to slip past everyone's notice and strike at any time, at any place. Including, even, Garreg Mach.

Felix curled his fingers into fists. "So," he said, "basically, everything is at their convenience. That’s what they’re trying to tell us." An utterly sickening realisation, Felix had thought, for it reminded him of the slimy woman that the royal family had hired as their mage – the very same who had tried to take Dimitri's life and turned the Kingdom upside-down.

"I'm afraid so." Seteth gave a tired sigh. "This is why I felt it important to inform the both of you about this, given your current positions. So that you can take the necessary measures when you return to your homeland. Or, well, wherever you may be headed to, after tonight."

Felix blinked, then tossed Claude a suspicious glance. Seteth and himself, he could understand – but what "position" could Seteth be referring to when it came to Claude, when the man had already stepped down as leader of the Alliance and handed the reins over to Dimitri? And why Claude at all, in the first place, when Felix had heard he had been travelling outside Fódlan? If it had been something concerning the former Alliance, then Lorenz should've been here – and Ferdinand, too, for that matter, in representation of the Old Empire.

Soon after, the meeting came to an end, and Felix and Claude took their leave. By the time they had reached the foot of the stairs Felix could bear it no longer and he turned sharply towards Claude, fixing him with a scowl.

"Whatever it is you want to ask," Claude said smoothly, before Felix could even open his mouth, "I highly recommend against it. As you've already figured, even the monastery isn't entirely safe. There might be prying ears lurking around, y’know."

"If you’re truly not up to anything weird, then why’re you drawing suspicion to yourself? What is it you're hiding that you don't want other people to know?" Felix asked anyway, keeping his voice low.

Claude gave a lazy shrug. "Like you said, I don't want people to know. So what makes you think I'd tell you?"

Felix hated how he could tell that the other man had been deflecting and yet could not say anything in response because what Claude said made complete sense and left practically no room for proper argument.

So he ended up huffing: "Then I'll find out what it is, with or without your help."

"Whatever helps you sleep better tonight, I guess." Claude gave a mock yawn and stretched his arms. "Oof, I'm beat. Guess I'm gonna go hit the hay. You'd better do the same, Your Graceliness."

Graceliness. _Graceliness._

Just hearing the revolting term made Felix shudder. And before he could yell at Claude for daring to call him that, the slippery man had already gone far ahead of him.

~*~

Despite having lived in Faerghus for all his childhood and his upbringing as the second son of the esteemed Fraldarius household, Felix has only ever visited the famed Tailtean Plains once in his life.

It had been when he and Dimitri were barely of the age of five – old enough to have started sword training under strict supervision from their instructors, and old enough to have started learning how to read and write. Specifically, they had been of the age when their fathers and practically every other adult had also started feeding them stories and passed them books about the King of Lions, who had often been accompanied by his sworn friend.

As such, Felix's actual memories of the place are obscure at best, and practically non-existent at worst. The closest thing he can vaguely recall is the sense of excitement that every child is bound to have experienced if they are given a gift of their liking or brought to a place that they believe only exist in fairy tales, the light fluttering in his chest as though walking on clouds – in other words, an unreliable memory, one that makes him doubt that the trip had ever taken place at all. Another sensation that he can recall, though it is a bizarre one, is the strange blistering heat that he somehow remembers had engulfed his entire body – but this is impossible, for Faerghus has always been cold even during the warmer months, so Felix chalks it up as another figment of his childhood imagination.

Dimitri – it is always Dimitri, Felix realises – challenges this.

"Do you remember, Felix?" Dimitri asks him. They are far away from the town, far from the tavern whom they had given their false identities to, with only each other as company as they arrive at the plains. Still shrouded in cold, murky darkness of the early winter morning, their path illuminated only by a small candle lamp that Felix holds in his hand while they made their way through the forest and trudged through the snow.

"Remember what?" Felix replies.

Dimitri shows rather than tells him. He walks briskly towards the stream that Felix hears running somewhere through the plains, and Felix has no choice but to quickly follow lest he risks losing sight of him in the dark of predawn. The lamp can only do so much in providing the visibility he needs, but Felix was born and raised in Faerghus, so he relies on his other senses to carry him through. When the footsteps before him come to a halt and the sounds of the running waters grow louder, the air turning colder, Felix stops and lifts the lamp. He squints and watches the calm current of the Tailtean River flowing past him, unfrozen despite the frigidity of the area.

"We've been here once," Dimitri says, staring at the river. "My father and Rodrigue... They had planned to come here, during one of my father's hunting trips. When we heard of that we insisted that they brought us along as well. Do you remember that?"

Felix simply grunts in way of a response.

"We had been so terribly excited," Dimitri continues, the delight in his voice ringing like the chime of a bell. "We wouldn't stop talking about the historic War of the Eagle and Lion on the way here. We even started acting out scenes from the books we had read about Loog and Kyphon and made a ruckus in the carriage. And Glenn, he..." He pauses. Felix does not turn to look at him – does not need to, to know what Dimitri might be thinking. He simply waits, as patiently as he can, and Dimitri manages to say, eventually, "He kept teasing us. For being such noisy kids. He never did stop making fun of us, despite Rodrigue scolding him."

Felix can't help but snort. "That's Glenn, all right," he mutters.

There have been moments like these, increasingly of late, when Dimitri would bring up shared memories of their distant childhood. It had started during the war, of all times – when the Professor invited them both to lunch, when the Professor tasked them to picking up rubble around the monastery, when the Professor had them train with each other. Felix never quite understood what Byleth had to do with all of that, but for some reason the boar thought it appropriate to share stories of their childhood with them and Felix had been mortified beyond measure each and every time it happened. When the war ended and Dimitri returned to Faerghus after his coronation while Byleth remained in the monastery, Felix thought the terrible habit would come to an end along with it. But to his utter dismay, it continued to happen. And to his growing horror, he had let it.

The first time it did since returning to Fhirdiad and Dimitri had casually mentioned Glenn, Felix had responded with scorn and scathingly reminded Dimitri of letting the past stay where it had belonged. Of letting the dead stay dead. It took two weeks of persuasion on Dimitri's end to convince Felix that he hadn't been talking about hearing Glenn's voice or trying to appease his ghost, but rather making sure he was remembering Glenn right – and the only person who knew Glenn better than he and whom he could trust to be honest with him had been Felix. Truth be told, Felix hadn't been completely convinced, but he figured he should at least give Dimitri a chance to prove himself and so far Felix hasn't been let down yet.

It isn't always about Glenn, Felix gradually came to realise ever since. Sometimes it's Sylvain, or Ingrid. Sometimes it's the four of them, playing together. Sometimes it's Lambert, teaching Dimitri about the lands of Faerghus and bringing him out on rides. Sometimes it's Rodrigue, telling him stories about his and Lambert's own childhood.

And sometimes, it's Felix. Felix training with him. Studying with him. Running around and playing hide-and-seek with him, crying into somebody's arms when he couldn't find Dimitri and thought he had gone missing.

Those, Felix does remember, as loathe as he is to admit, especially about the hide-and-seek one. And that's precisely why he finds the current situation all the more suspicious.

"It's almost terrifying how brazen he could be in his teasing." Dimitri chuckles, unknowing of Felix's thoughts. "He even made you cry because he refused to stop. And you, in turn, tried to shove him out of his bed in his sleep, which only ended up encouraging him all the more."

Had he really done that while Dimitri had been awake to witness it? Felix tries to imagine it in his head, but ends up drawing a blank.

"Still, that didn't stop us from relishing in our own fun," Dimitri goes on to say, fondly. "When our fathers finished hunting for the day, they brought us here, in this open field, and started up a fire to cook their game. While they had been busy, the two of us gazed at the stars and played by the river. The very same one here, where we are now."

It is then that Dimitri falls silent. Too silent for too long, for Felix's liking, so he lifts his head and looks to his right. It's still too dark to properly make out the expression on the other man's face, but not quite dim enough to miss that he is almost certainly frowning.

"Dimitri?"

He hears Dimitri let out a shaky breath. But still, he remains otherwise silent, as though unable to say another word – a stark contrast to how he had just been, barely a moment ago.

Felix bites down on his lower lip. Perhaps he shouldn't have agreed to letting Dimitri come here, he thinks, but it's not the time to ruminate on that. "We should...get going," he suggests, when he can't think of what else to say. "I said I'd give you an hour, and I'm going to stand by it. We'll be just in time, if we—"

"Felix," Dimitri interjects.

Felix stops. Turns back, and looks at Dimitri, but says nothing.

Dimitri sighs. "I'm sorry," he murmurs. "I had thought, if we came here, it would make a pleasant memory for both of us. To make up for the unhappy ones you've had of this place. But I can sense that I've only made it worse in that regard, and I'm truly sorry for that."

"Wait," Felix says. "What do you mean by that?"

"About what, Felix?" Dimitri asks, quietly.

"About… About making up for some sort of unhappy memories," Felix answers. "What do you mean by that?"

Dimitri finally tilts his head towards him, and his confusion is plain to see even in the misty darkness. "You don't remember?"

"Should I?" Felix asks back, hurriedly scrambling through his own memories even though he despises dwelling on them, and still finds himself coming up short of anything remotely familiar about the Tailtean Plains.

"Not even about what I just said? About how we played by this river and looked up at the stars? About Glenn's teasing?"

"...No," Felix tells him truthfully. "Believe me, I've tried. I mean, I know we came here once. My old man told me that. Glenn told me that. But that had been so long ago and I remember nothing of it myself, so I thought..."

"You thought it's nothing worth remembering," Dimitri finishes for him.

Is that truly it? Felix doesn't know what he doesn't remember, so he pulls his shoulders to a shrug. "Can't say for sure," he admits.

Neither of them makes a sound, neither do they even move an inch from where they are. Only the sound of the running waters remains a constant between them – the river that flows and stretches across the grand field that's been covered in nothing but snow, whistling as it meanders past them.

Dimitri is the one who breaks the silence between them, with such tender care as though afraid he would shatter it with his brute strength, even though such a thing should be impossible.

"Then please put this out of your mind," he whispers. "I will also no longer speak of it."

The words ignite something within Felix. As though striking a match and setting his insides on fire.

"You can't just say all that and then tell me to forget about it."

"But it truly is nothing worth remembering," Dimitri tells him.

"I'll be the judge of that," Felix seethes.

"Felix," Dimitri sighs, again, exhausted, "aren't you the one always telling me to leave the past behind? To move past it, and to keep moving forward?"

Oh, he is _not_ going to turn this argument around by throwing Felix's own words against him.

"That is not what this is about," Felix counters angrily. "Stop dodging the topic. I've had enough of having to deal with loose ends whenever something like this happens with you. You'll obviously let this eat at you if you don't lay it out anyway, and I won't be having any of that."

"Felix..."

"Out with it," Felix demands, shutting down the beginnings of yet another one of Dimitri's protests.

Dimitri does not reply immediately. He stays quiet, brooding, and Felix decidedly hates it when he gets like that around him because it's been happening far too often and it's about time they start somewhere in order to address it. Even if it has nothing to do with what they've let stewing for the past half year.

The whistling grows louder, though there is no change to the water's movements, as the dark navy sky gradually turns lighter.

"...Alright," Dimitri says. "What happened that day—"

"Wait," Felix cuts him off, reaching out.

Something blazes past them. Too fast for Felix to be able to make out at just a mere glance – but it had glowed, Felix is sure of it – and he lets his instincts take over, switching his grip on their lamp as he tugs at Dimitri's coat and forces him down before unsheathing his sword.

A second passes, and with it comes the next strike. Felix instantly parries it, striking the ray of light down, and it falls to the snow, sizzling.

An arrow, Felix recognises with a sharp breath, for it is not just any ordinary arrow. An arrow that had glowed blood-red as it had flown towards them.

"It can't be," Dimitri says, gasping, trying to stand from behind Felix. "That should be in the Kingdom treasure vault. Why is it—"

Felix growls and delivers a back-kick at where he thinks Dimitri's leg is. "Get down, you idiot, this isn't the time for—"

A bolt of lightning cuts him off, striking right at Felix's feet where the arrow lays. It burns to a crisp before disintegrating completely, leaving behind a charred mark on the ground. Felix can feel the heat radiate from it, the air charged and sizzling where it had been chilly before, and he clamps his eyes shut in reflex at the blinding light, for just a split second, before he realises his error and forces them open, black spots dancing about his vision.

Another crimson arrow is sent flying towards them, but now Felix is unable to parry it in time and dodging would mean risking Dimitri getting stricken. So he braces himself, holds up his sword as though it were a shield as swiftly as he can, but he does not delude himself into thinking it would be able to act properly as one. He swears under his breath as he senses Dimitri stepping forward and deflecting the arrow on his behalf with a firm swing of his own sword, then swears again as he feels the heat of the magic thickening in the air, charging up for yet another attack.

"Move, Dimitri."

"Felix—"

"We need to _move_ , Dimitri!"

"I know—"

"So move!"

"Not unless you start moving as well," Dimitri says. "Please, Felix."

"—Dammit!"

An argument is right at the tip of Felix's tongue but he forces it back down. Makes himself promise to yell at Dimitri senseless after this, and then does what Dimitri tells him to, leaping out of the way of another beam of light descending from the heavens and breaking into a sprint with Dimitri following behind him. He flings the lamp away as hard as he can, grabs onto Dimitri's sleeve, and keeps his grip tight as they dash across the shoal and further upwards towards the collapsed fortress, further away from where Felix supposes their assailants must be hiding.

Something gallops behind them. Felix turns, steadying his sword. The whistling crescendos into a high-pitched hum.

"Fuck!" Felix yells as the arrow buries itself deep into his left collarbone. The pain erupts, piercing and sharp. And then it burns, hot and scalding, as though it is searing off his flesh. For a moment his vision turns black and he nearly stumbles over himself, grip twisting into Dimitri's sleeve so tightly he can almost feel Dimitri's pulse thumping wildly under his fingers.

"Felix!" Dimitri grabs onto his wrist. "Felix—!"

"I'm fine," Felix manages, panting, every breath he takes seemingly only adding fuel to the burn across his shoulder. His legs are shaking, threatening to give way. But he bites down on his lip until it draws blood, forces himself to straighten, and keeps his hand firm around the hilt of his sword despite it all.

He hears Dimitri's breaths hasten, feels his pulse racing. "Don't— Felix, please, I can—"

"Stop being such a fucking baby," Felix snarls. "It's just an arrow to the damn shoulder. I can still _fight_."

"You'll make the bleeding worse—"

"Does it look like we have the time to even care?!" Felix whirls around and all but exclaims.

Then all at once the anger dissipates, replaced by another feeling altogether – something cold, colder than the most frigid of nights in Faerghus; so cold and unbearable, that it creeps into his chest and spreads through his blood, freezing it over until there's nothing left in his body that has yet to escape its grasp. His eyes widen.

His world flashes white.

When he next returns to awareness, it's to the sight of his blade pierced straight through the masked face of a person that had been standing behind Dimitri. It's to the sight of said figure's outstretched arm, to the dull and sickening thrum of the dark magic surrounding them, to the look of plain, utmost terror in Dimitri’s pale expression, to the arrow still sticking out from his left collarbone and the heat of the blood oozing heavily from the wound.

The masked figure sinks and lays crumpled on the ground, unmoving. Felix coughs. Then he coughs once more, wheezes and chokes, and feels himself collapse, his vision blurring.

A pair of arms – strong, firm, yet trembling beyond measure – wraps around his torso and breaks his fall. Felix dimly senses being lowered down. Gently, tenderly. It's incredibly warm, some part of him thinks listlessly, and he feels the back of his throat making an unidentifiable noise as he's laid on something soft and cold and the warmth drains away from him.

He hears someone trying to shout through to him, but it is as though Felix has his head submerged in the ocean, the sound like distorted ripples through the water. A muffled yell, desperate and pleading. Twice, then three times, then four. He isn't sure, but it sounds like someone calling his name. Then Felix stops counting, because he doesn't see the point in it.

He can barely see anything at all, he is beginning to realise.

 _Oh,_ he thinks, languidly, as he faintly, distantly recalls having experienced something similar, once before.

It had been sometime when he was still a child, he half-believes. When he and Dimitri were barely of the age of five – old enough to have started sword training under strict supervision from their instructors, and old enough to have started learning how to read and write. They had begged their fathers to bring them along to the Tailtean Plains on their hunting trip, and wouldn't stop talking about the legendary heroes of old who had founded the Kingdom. They had played pretend, acting out their favourite scenes, looking up at the stars as Loog and Kyphon were said to have enjoyed doing in their rare moments of spare time. They had a lot of fun. So much of it that Felix had sworn he would never forget this trip for the rest of his life, and Dimitri had giggled, promising the same.

Glenn had been there, too, Felix thinks, teasing and poking fun at them. Having a good laugh at watching them play.

He wasn't laughing when Felix slipped and fell straight into the river.

Whatever happened after that had been a complete blur, but it's something similar to what's happening now, probably. Someone trying to pull him out. Someone laying him on what feels like the clouds. Someone calling out to him.

And then – just as how he remembers it – he knows no more.

~*~

The second time it happened, it had been about four moons after the end of the war.

They had been in Derdriu, at that time, in order to meet with the five noble families of the former Leicester Roundtable as well as most of the minor lords in the region to discuss trade and border affairs, amongst other matters.

After Felix sat through a debate that lasted well over half an hour and still did not seem to have an end in sight, despite Dimitri's intermittent requests for everyone to settle down obviously falling on deaf ears, he decided to take matters into his own hands – as he always did, when it came to dealing with an unruly and ineffective court or meeting.

"The king gave his order," the words slipped out without thinking, as Felix rose to his feet and glowered across the table. "Are you all trying to act in defiance to it?"

The weak protests started, then, as Felix expected it to, with the lords mumbling under their breaths and amongst themselves and the occasional squawking of "No, Your Majesty, we wouldn't possibly dare—" and Felix shut them all down with a disdainful scoff. Pathetic lot, all these nobles were.

It was only when Lorenz, as the appointed representative of the Old Alliance lords, stood and offered his apologies on their behalf that the matter could be put to rest and they could carry on with the meeting. It did not, however, put a complete stop to the bickering over other petty affairs that had also been part of the agenda – which Felix felt did not need to be brought to the attention of the nation's king at all but Dimitri, to his chagrin, had insisted on listening – but miraculously they managed to keep to the scheduled time in the end, and when it was finally over and the lords trickled out of the room Felix let out the frustrated breath he had been burying deep within himself.

"Your Majesty, I am truly sorry..." he heard Lorenz, who had remained behind, start muttering to Dimitri, which Felix filtered out because he could already guess what Lorenz was apologising for and he wasn't interested in hearing any more about the topic.

"Ugh," Hilda groaned, loud as always, as Felix started gathering up the papers furiously, "this is why I can't stand these meetings sometimes. They're so _boring_."

'Boring' was not the exact word Felix would use, but at least she shared his disgust for these petty squabbles. He could respect that, at the very least.

Hilda gave a melodramatic sigh. "It's just too bad we have no choice but to attend these things, though. I really wish I didn't." Then, before Felix could point out to her that it wasn’t compulsory for her to attend, she looked in his direction and beamed. "Great job getting everything back in order, by the way. These kinds of things are such a hassle, but you made it look so easy."

Felix felt his brow twitch. "So you say, but I haven't seen you try to babysit a bunch of nobles who can't keep themselves in line," he couldn't help but deadpan.

Hilda shrugged. "Like I said, it's too much trouble. Also, it's you, after all."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Felix asked.

"Oh, nothing," Hilda drawled. Which meant it had definitely been _something_ but either she was deliberately trying to draw up a response from him or she simply didn't care to tell him.

Felix scowled, but decided to let it be. Despite having fought together as comrades in the same army, he had never been all that close to the Goneril girl and they rarely exchanged words with each other in the first place. But he heard enough from Sylvain to know that she had a certain way with people, concealed under her lazy and carefree exterior. Skilled enough to trick even Sylvain, sometimes, so Felix believed he had reason enough to be careful around her. The less he spoke to her the better, he had determined.

Unfortunately, Hilda thought otherwise. "Hey, you guys don't have anything else on after this, right?" she asked, swiftly changing the subject.

Felix had a feeling that being truthful in this instance would not be beneficial in the least, so he opted to lean towards the rare decision for dishonesty. "Yes, we do," he replied. "We were planning to go visit the local swordsmith. We heard there are rare weapons here in Derdriu."

It was not a complete lie, since they did schedule that into their itinerary – only that they were supposed to drop by the swordsmith tomorrow, after their walkabout around the aquatic capital to survey the recovery efforts. Not today, for Dedue had other plans for Dimitri, which Felix had already agreed upon since it mostly consisted of getting Dimitri to eat and rest well, undisturbed and away from the troubling affairs of his work as king, and most certainly well far-removed from whatever diabolical distractions Hilda had in mind.

"Ugh, you boys and your obsession with weapons. I don't understand it – haven’t we already had enough of things like that?" Hilda's nose wrinkled in disgust. "Can't you make it tomorrow?"

"Why?"

"You'll be heading back to Fhirdiad the day after, right? And tomorrow is the walkabout, I heard?"

"...Yes?" Felix raised a brow. "What's your point?"

"My point is, His Majesty practically has zero opportunities left to enjoy himself at Derdriu unless you shift that visit to the swordsmith tomorrow!"

The scrolls crumpled under Felix's grip. "He enjoys visiting swordsmiths," he pointed out dryly.

Hilda rolled her eyes. "I meant there are _other_ places that His Majesty can visit too, duh. It's not like he gets to drop by here every day, you know."

"You're being awfully persistent," Felix said.

"I'm just saying it'd be good for His Majesty to learn how to get out more," Hilda replied. "You and him both, honestly."

Felix truly did not see how spending one year at the academy and five years fighting a war did not already constitute 'getting out more', in Hilda's own words. He could see an argument being made for himself, but Dimitri, in particular, had been gone far too often, and far too long.

Going to Duscur had been more than enough. Too much, in fact.

Felix breathed out a sigh, wondering not for the first time when the hell would Lorenz finally stop talking so that he and Dimitri could rightfully leave this place. "And he'll have his share of 'getting out'," Felix retorted, emphasising on the words, "tomorrow."

Hilda looked at him as though he were a stain that she couldn't wash off her clothes no matter how hard she tried. "Ugh, Sylvain was right, you really _are_ hopeless."

Felix could not, for the life of him, figure out what Sylvain even had to do with any of this.

"I think I've already said more than enough," Hilda said, getting up from her seat. "C'mon Marianne."

"Um, okay," was the first and last thing Felix would hear from her for the rest of the day, as she too rose to her feet and eventually followed Hilda out of the room. It was not long after that that Gloucester finally ran out of things to discuss with Dimitri and bid his own farewell, leaving only Dimitri, Felix and Dedue in the room. Felix couldn't help but find the whole timing a little too convenient for his liking, but he wasn't about to stick around to figure that out. He could always force the answer out of Sylvain, if need be, and he had a king to accompany back to the inn, after all, which was exactly what he and Dedue – and Ingrid, later on, who had been waiting at the entrance of the building they had been in – did once it was clear enough that they could leave without interruption.

Dimitri's visit to Derdriu had not been kept a secret, by any means. It would've been impossible to keep such a thing under wraps in the first place, seeing how nearly all of the former Alliance lords had convened in the aquatic capital for this meeting. So the least Dedue, Felix and Ingrid could do was to make sure their accommodations would not be made known to the general public, and that indirectly meant asking a favour from Lorenz who personally made the arrangements for them.

This, unfortunately, meant that Dimitri was treated quite literally like a king at the inn he had been lodging at.

"Count Gloucester instructed us to ensure your utmost comfort in every aspect during your stay here," had been the innkeeper's words as she personally delivered the food to Dimitri's table. A table that had been overly decorated with the finest fabric that rivalled even that of the cloths used back at the castle in Fhirdiad.

"Of course he did," Felix grumbled under his breath.

The food was truly extravagant, not only in its quality but in the quantity as well, as the innkeeper kept making repeated trips to deliver the dishes. She did not stop doing so, even after Dimitri had meekly requested her to once or twice; instead, they only emboldened her on, her eagerness and desire to please evident in her every move, mistakenly understanding Dimitri's words to mean that she had not done her job well enough, and the sight only served to make Dimitri more and more uneasy as time went on and the food would not cease.

Eventually, when the innkeeper finally announced that she was delivering them the final dish and left them be, Dimitri let out the breath he had been holding and shook his head miserably.

"I must inform Lorenz that there was truly no need for all of this," he murmured, unable to even glance in the direction of all the food on the table. "I am glad this means that the Alliance is on the road to recovery, in terms of resources, but surely some of this food would be better served elsewhere."

"Old Alliance, you mean," Felix corrected with a mumble.

"Ah," Dimitri said, realising his error.

Felix waved it off. He wasn't in the mood to deal with that, currently. Not when there was another visibly large problem sitting right in front of them that needed to be dealt with.

Thankfully, the solution to this had been standing guard outside the room, so Felix did not have to move too far. Ingrid and Dedue had been slightly hesitant, at first, but upon realising that the food was clearly not made in reasonable portions for only two people they abided by Felix's request and took their seats, Ingrid with more fervour than Dedue despite her attempts to pretend she hadn’t. The three of them took turns in testing the food, each picking a different dish until all the dishes had been tested, and Dimitri only started having his meal after all of them were done.

They ended up with a sizeable amount of leftovers, but since that was to be expected it had already been set aside before they started eating, and thankfully they managed to finish the fair share of the food they had set for themselves. Dimitri looked beyond relieved when Dedue told him he would make a walk around the outskirts to see if anybody might be in need of the extra food.

"I will accompany you," Dimitri said, determined.

"No," Dedue gently declined. "The king shouldn't be seen roaming about Derdriu before the scheduled walkabout tomorrow morning. For now, you must rest in preparation for that."

Dimitri frowned. "But it's not fair to leave this for you to handle, when the reason this problem came about at all was because of me."

"It is not a problem at all, Your Majesty," Dedue replied. "You are not inconveniencing me. I am more than happy to do this for you. And, please, do not think of it in such a manner, when you are not at fault for anything."

"But—"

"Just give it a rest," Felix cut in. "If you're that guilt-tripped over it then you can make it up by doing as he says and going to bed early."

Dimitri fell silent, eye widening slightly as he regarded Felix. Felix huffed and straightened his back, sticking his chin upward, but Dimitri no longer seemed to have the intent to protest further. Only kept staring at him.

Dedue, for some reason, cracked one of his rare smiles at him. It was enough to make Felix want to jump out of his skin if he could.

Ingrid had been smiling, too. "He's right, Your Majesty," she said. "If there's anything that you're owing us, it's a good night's sleep. Don't worry about the leftovers, I'll go with Dedue to help with the distribution."

Dimitri gave a heavy sigh. "If you all insist," he relented, his shoulders sagging.

Dedue and Ingrid went ahead and packed up the food, and when they were done they bowed and took their leave – quick yet careful, as to be expected.

Felix had helped them with it. Dimitri wanted to as well, but Felix glared him back into his seat before Dedue and Ingrid had anything to say about it, and he had been melancholic and quiet ever since, even as Felix led him to his temporary quarters, only speaking up when Felix reached out to open the door.

"I can do it," he had murmured.

Felix's arm froze mid-air for a split second. "It's just opening the door," he scoffed.

Dimitri took the opportunity to grab onto the knob before Felix could. "That's precisely it," he replied. "I am not a child, Felix. I can make my own decisions. Handle such menial tasks myself. Know when to rest and have my meals, without reminder."

Felix frowned, allowing his arm to fall to his side. "Of course I know that."

The corners of Dimitri's lips twitched, stretching thin. "Of course you do," he muttered under his breath.

Felix blinked, unsure what to make of such a response, and then instinct took over. "What's the matter with you, all of a sudden?" he snapped.

Dimitri considered this. And then he shrugged. "Nothing is the matter," he said simply. Tiredly.

"Dimitri—"

"Nothing is the matter, Felix," Dimitri repeated.

"Sure doesn’t sound like it," Felix challenged.

"Felix," Dimitri said, tilting his head. It was enough for Felix to look straight into his lone blue eye, to see the shame swirling within it. The deep frown etched upon Dimitri's features. "I simply want to open the door myself. Is that such a difficult thing to ask for?"

Felix fell silent. Dimitri, himself, had nothing else to add, after that.

And they remained like that, for a while. Hovering over a damn door, of all things, which Felix was certain was not the root cause behind Dimitri’s sudden shift in demeanour – but it had definitely contributed to it, at the very least.

Felix averted his gaze and cleared his throat. "Fine," he said, stiffly. "If you want to do it that badly, then just…go ahead and open it."

Dimitri blinked sadly, the corners of his brows drooping. "Felix," he tried. Felix knew what was coming next.

So he refused Dimitri that. "Just open the damn thing already," he said.

Dimitri stared at him for another moment or two, before he finally nodded and went on to turn the knob, pushing the door open. He took the first step in, then another, and Felix followed closely after.

Another set of doors slammed open, like a thunder clap ringing across the sky. Then a high-pitched battle cry, loud and hysterical, screaming for the death of the king. For the death of Felix’s king.

Felix darted forward.

The assailant had been of a short stature. Tiny, compared to Felix; a dwarf, to Dimitri. Their movements were trained, quick and steady on their feet, and they held up their dagger like a hunter diving for their prey – but overall they were horribly sloppy. Inexperienced. Clearly still an amateur.

Like a Faerghan child still thick in the middle of their training.

Felix didn't need to draw his sword. Simply reached out, knocked the dagger out of the assassin's grasp, then wrapped his fingers around their throat while they had been stunned and shoved them to the ground. They shrieked until their voice went hoarse, shifting between demanding Felix to let them go and calling for the blood of Dimitri, kicking pathetically at Felix and digging their nails into the fabric of Felix's gloves in their futile attempt to pry his hand off.

"Felix!" he heard Dimitri gasp behind him.

"Stay out of this, Dimitri," Felix warned. Goddess knew how Dimitri would react knowing that the person who had just tried to kill him had been a child, of all things. One who was very likely from Faerghus, no less.

"But Felix," Dimitri started, "this is just—"

" _No_ ," Felix snapped back. "A child or no, they just tried to murder you."

"Even still, we should listen to what the child has to say," Dimitri retorted firmly.

"What do you expect them to say in their own defence while in your presence? They just tried to kill you!"

"Felix," Dimitri said, his jaw set.

Felix drew in a seething breath. "Fine," he bit out harshly. "Just don't interfere."

Dimitri did not reply, which Felix took as silent assent. So Felix turned sharply towards the child assassin, fixing them with the fiercest glare he could muster.

Instead, he finds his eyes slowly widening in what he has yet to identify as cold, abject horror.

The child has navy blue hair that scarcely reached their shoulders, made rustled and unkempt during the scuffle. Their eyes are dyed the colour of amber, looking almost golden as they blaze with fury and resentment. They look nothing more than a wounded, bloodthirsty animal – nostrils flared, teeth bloodied and grit together, grime and dirt smeared all over their face.

Felix steals a glance to the side where the dagger had fallen. He recognises the crossguard anywhere. The intricate pattern of the hilt. The exquisite workmanship of the blade.

He finds himself unable to breathe.

"Who," he gasps out, as though he's the one who has had hands grasped around his throat, instead, "who the hell are you?"

The child responds with a snarl. Like the cry of a snow leopard cub thrashing about wildly as the jagged snares of a trap left by a poacher dig into its body.

"It doesn't matter who I am," the child roars. "It doesn't matter who I am!"

"Then what does to you?" Felix asks back, trying to catch his breath. "What are you here for?"

"I'm here to kill him!" the child screams at the top of their voice, gesturing ferociously at a space behind Felix, where Dimitri had been standing, and Felix forces their hand down. "I'm here to claim his life! I'm here to tear him apart – as he had done to my family, and to countless other innocent people! Nothing else matters but his blood on my blade! Nothing!"

"Shit!" Felix swears when the assailant's struggle turns vicious, suddenly gaining a surge in strength.

"Felix!"

Felix grits his teeth. "Stay back!"

" _Felix_!" Dimitri's voice grows closer, yet distinctively distant.

Felix whips his head around. "I said stay—!"

_—What?_

The room is gone.

The inn they're in is gone. The buildings in the former Alliance capital. The ocean, the ports – all gone.

Dimitri is gone.

Felix feels himself choke on a shuddering breath. _What—_

"He's gone," the child whispers brokenly – a chilling contrast to the wailing wraith they had been acting just moments earlier. "He's gone."

"What did you do?" Felix demands. "What the fuck did you do?"

The child gazes at him forlornly, eyes glassy and wet. Looking just as lost as Felix feels, at this very moment.

"It no longer matters," he replies, deathly quiet.

"Bullshit," Felix snaps. "It all stopped making sense the moment you appeared. You must've done something. Spill it."

"It no longer matters," the child repeats.

Felix abandons all thought. He grabs the dagger and presses it against the child’s neck. "Spill it!"

The child watches the gesture nonchalantly, then closes their eyes. A trail of water trickles down their cheek. "It no longer matters," they say, weakly. "He's gone."

Then they tug on Felix's wrists and pull the blade across—

_“—Felix!”_

~*~

Felix bolts upright. He spends the next few long, agonising moments regretting this as the sharp, searing pain erupts from every possible inch of his body – the worst being his upper torso – to the point that he can't even bend over or lie back down to relieve himself of it. Only clutches, with one hand, around the fabric of his clothes over his left collarbone, and the sheets of his bed with the other, his toes curling unto themselves as he bites down on his lower lip, and clenches his eyes tightly shut. Feels the bile rising to the back of his throat, and is unable to hold back the groan that escapes it.

"Felix!" he hears someone call out his name. Footsteps rushing over.

He receives his reprieve in the form of a warm and soothing magic – first over his chest, then to his back, his arms, and finally down to his limbs before returning to his chest. It is only then that he finally finds it easier to breathe, and is able to open his eyes towards the source of the healing magic.

"M... Mercedes?"

"Oh, thank the goddess, you're awake," Mercedes says, the relief palpable in her melodic tone. "Please, tell me, are you hurting anywhere else? Is there anywhere else you need me to work on?"

Felix shakes his head sluggishly. "No, it's.... It's fine. I think you covered pretty much everywhere already."

"Are you sure?" Mercedes asks, worriedly.

Felix nods. Then heaves out a shaky sigh, still clutching onto his chest as a dull sting jabs at his ribcage.

He doesn't even realise she's helping him lie back down until he finds himself already supine, the covers pulled up to cover his shoulders.

"Mercedes," he croaks, "what... what happened? Where's... Where's Dimitri?"

"You don't remember?" she says, eyes widening.

 _Only bits and pieces,_ he almost answers, but even then that is not much. All he can recall with a certain degree of certainty is that he had been at the Tailtean Plains with Dimitri, and that they had come under attack by unknown assailants – but nothing more beyond that.

"Wouldn't...be asking if I did," he replies back.

A solemn expression finds its way to Mercedes' face. "I suppose not," she acknowledges, lowering her head.

Seeing her like this only makes Felix all the more antsy – _Did Dimitri get injured? Did anyone manage to capture the assailants?_ – but he refrains from pressing her further, and opts to wait it out until she is comfortable enough to tell him.

Mercedes folds her hands into her lap. "We won, Felix," she replies, softly, which is decidedly a rather strange thing to say because it doesn't exactly answer Felix's question.

So he asks, "What do you mean ‘we won’?"

Mercedes gives him a mildly surprised look. "I meant that we won the war, of course," she tells him, carefully.

"I thought we already did," he says, starting to get confused, "six moons ago."

Now Mercedes looks outright concerned. "Oh dear," she says, "I was so sure I checked for head injuries when I examined you... Are you sure you didn't get hurt anywhere else?"

"Stop messing around, Mercedes," Felix replies, his patience growing thin as the dread pooling at his gut grows. "Just tell me if Dimitri... If Dimitri is here, too."

Mercedes goes silent as the colour slowly drains from her face. She leans closer towards him, gingerly reaching out with her hands and tenderly encloses them around one of Felix's own – the one that's holding onto the sheets.

Her hands are so very, very cold, Felix realises. So unlike how Felix usually remembers them being. So unlike the hands of the compassionate woman who has healed him and all of their comrades countless times over.

"Oh, Felix," she says, voice cracking.

They're the hands of his executioner, Felix soon learns, as she tells him all he needs and doesn't ever want to know.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> RIP Felix.
> 
> ~
> 
> Some things to note:  
> \- I tried to include as many characters as I could in the banquet scene, but a few still got left out (namely Mercedes, Annette, and Leonie). Please don't worry, they are not dead, I just had difficulty trying to integrate them smoothly into the scene. Every character possible that can stay alive in Azure Moon in-game canon is still alive in this story.  
> \- Again, I couldn't fit this in without it sounding awkward, but the reason why Felix didn't bring Aegis with him to the tavern (and hence to the plains) is because it'd be way too flashy. Same reason why Dimitri didn't have Areadbhar or even a lance with him, since I figured swords would be easier to hide and carry around.  
> \- This is more for self-entertainment but if you're wondering why Felix went down in just two hits, it's because this story takes place in Maddening mode, he didn't have the Aegis Shield with him, and his Def & Res are not exactly his best stat growths. Since Dimitri also evidently did not have a battalion with him, there is no way to activate Battalion Vantage+Battalion Wrath here. They were basically trying to defend themselves under Fog of War conditions with only a Silver Sword+ each and no way of performing counterattacks against magic and bows. In other words, worse than attempting to get by Hunting By Daybreak on Maddening on a Faerghus Four run (i.e. relying only on Dimitri up until the first half of the map). I am definitely not speaking from experience when I say this *whistles innocently*  
> \- The change in tenses during one particular scene is 100% intentional.  
> \- This chapter is absolutely the reason why I had Dimitri and Felix sharing as many scenes as possible, up until this point. Things are going to be very difficult for both of them from here on out. I would even say this whole chapter is basically a warning by itself for what awaits them for the rest of the story. But rest assured, this *will* have a happy ending. I can guarantee you that.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> CW: dealing with grief/mourning, mentions about physical illness, implied labour complications, and frank discussions about death in general on Felix's part. Felix also does not have favourable impressions about Edelgard and Hubert and he isn't afraid to voice it. Hopefully, it doesn't come off as too negative. I like Edelgard and Hubert, in fact, but Felix understandably doesn't.
> 
> Also, not exactly a warning, but do take note that Felix is very much an Unreliable Narrator here. Things are not what they seem.
> 
> If you had skipped the sections mentioned in the beginning of the previous chapter, the brief summary of the events is that Felix encountered a familiar-looking child who had tried to assassinate Dimitri in Derdriu, the whole of Derdriu including Dimitri had vanished and Felix, in a moment of confusion and panic, tried to threaten the child before waking up from this dream-like sequence to a Mercedes and world he doesn't find familiarity in.

Felix learns three things upon waking up:

One – that a battle did indeed break out on the Tailtean Plains, and that he had apparently been injured during the heat of battle. Fractures, when his body had been flung across the field and slammed into the ground. Burns, where magic had struck him. Suffered cuts and grazes, from weapons that had pierced his armour. The deepest being the gash across his collarbone right down his chest that had torn through his flesh and very narrowly missed his heart, leaving a wound that festered and bled through the uneven scarring despite Mercedes' care and painstaking work.

He knows this, because she comes in and changes the bandages for him, every time. Every time, she carefully unravels it, unfazed by the amount of blood and pus left on it, undeterred by the stench of the flesh that Felix can see is rotting away instead of healing properly beneath it. And every time, she asks him the same questions:

"How are you feeling?"

Like shit, he wants to say. Confused, frustrated. Angry, so angry – a burning anger he hasn't felt in so long.

Nothing out of the ordinary, is what he says. She always hums sadly, thoughtfully.

"Do you know where we are?"

The answer comes easily, for there is no way Felix would not be able to recognise Garreg Mach monastery. It is the remaining half of the answer that doesn't, because although the structure is the same the people in it are not, and this half, he keeps to himself.

"Do you remember what happened?"

The wound throbs. He never answers.

She leaves him the same way each time: through the door, soiled bandages in tow, with a sorrowful expression on her face. And Felix's anger only continues to grow.

Mercedes isn't the only person who has paid Felix a visit with what seems like a purpose in mind.

Shortly after the news that Felix was alive had apparently been made known, it had been Sylvain who was the first to drop by to see how he had been doing.

"Hey," he had said, flashing Felix a familiar smile that made Felix want to punch off Sylvain's face. The kind of smile that Felix knew Sylvain liked to hide something under. The kind of smile that Sylvain had been wearing, less and less, over the course of the last stretch of the war and the months after the end of it. "You finally back with us, Fe?"

"No," Felix had said, "obviously." He had meant it.

If Sylvain had caught onto it, he did not show it. Instead he threw his head back with a laugh that rang hollow in Felix's ears.

"You have a mean sense of humour sometimes. You know that, Felix?"

Felix did not find anything about what he had said to be remotely funny in the least.

Sylvain only grinned as he walked up to Felix. He didn't bother with the stool by the bed, choosing to remain standing, his back slightly hunched and his shoulders squared as he stared down at Felix.

There was a certain stiffness to his posture that did not escape Felix's notice. A crinkle by his brows, a twitch of the corners of his lips, a shadow cast over his eyes. All the tell-tale signs that something had been wrong. Something that weighed heavily in Sylvain's mind, hanging over his neck like a guillotine that threatened to slice it clean off if he attempted to voice it, pretending that whatever it was did not bother him in the least.

It reminded him of the time when Sylvain had been found in bottom of the well in the Gautier Castle gardens, Felix remembered. Or worse still – the mountains that bordered Gautier and Sreng territory. Abandoned and left stranded there, in the middle of winter, a deliberate act of cruelty that Miklan had committed against him. And when he had been asked what happened, that look had flashed across Sylvain's face before he forced a smile and said that he had simply lost his way.

Perhaps that something was the nightmare they had found themselves in, Felix wondered. Out of everyone who could've leapt at the chance of freedom and destroying the system that had – has? – influenced Fódlan for centuries, Felix would not have been surprised if Sylvain had, but not without tearing him asunder as he did so, knowing that he would have to face those from his own homeland in battle. Maybe that was why he even did it at all.

 _And to what end,_ Felix thought. Had he done it for a reason similar to Sylvain's? Had he done it because Sylvain had, first? Or was it Felix who—

"Sylvain," Felix murmured.

"Yeah?" Sylvain replied.

Felix bit his lip as he mulled over the words he wanted and didn't want to say. If it had been the Sylvain he knew, he probably wouldn't have bothered. But because the facts stood that this was not the Sylvain he remembered and yet still felt distinctly like him nonetheless, Felix had to ask. "Where," he eventually managed, "are we supposed to go from here?"

_Why did we do it?_

Something in Sylvain's expression shattered at that. Shifted, rapidly, between shock, horror, mirth, fury, before it simply went blank. It was nothing Felix had ever seen him do before, in all the years Felix has known him.

Then Sylvain continued to do the unthinkable. He turned his head away, ran his hand over his face, and held it like that in complete and utter silence. His other hand had curled into a fist, trembling by his side.

"Goddess, Felix," he heard Sylvain mutter. "What do you expect me to say to something like that?"

The peculiarity and the sense of wrongness that crawled along his skin only grew when his next visitor came to the room, not long after Sylvain had left.

"Don't you dare even think about running off on us, now," had been Ingrid's way of greeting him as she strode in, slamming the door behind her with a sort of firm grace that only she could've possessed.

Felix felt like he had just been sucker punched in the gut. "You— What—"

"How could you?" Ingrid carried on, never one to let up on reprimanding him or Sylvain whenever she had the opportunity to. "What did you promise me, Felix? What did you promise Sylvain? And now you're just – going to leave it all behind and pretend none of it ever happened, just like that? What are you thinking!"

"I never said anything like that," Felix snapped. He didn't even know what Sylvain's reaction had meant, or how Sylvain interpreted his words but Felix hadn't said anything remotely like what Ingrid had been suggesting. He still wasn’t sure if any of this was even the least bit _real_. "Besides, that should be my line. Ingrid, what... What the fuck are you even doing in a place like this? Why would someone like you," _abandon the Kingdom, abandon your homeland, abandon the king whom you've sworn to protect, the king who—_ "throw everything you've been working towards away?"

Ingrid's eyes widened slightly as she fell into a stunned silence. It was only then that Felix had noticed that they'd gone red and swollen. She must've been crying before she had come in to scold him, Felix thought. It had been some time since he last saw her like that.

Once, it had been when Sylvain had gone missing in the middle of winter, he remembered. The worst and most devastated she had gotten had been when Glenn had died. And then, four years after that, after it had been announced that Dimitri had been executed for a crime he hadn’t committed. A scheme that turned out to have been by that wretched Cornelia’s doing.

Ingrid has had no reason to shed tears ever since.

But the Ingrid that apparently did and who stood before him stepped closer. Then she looked at Felix. Really looked at him – from head to toe, then to the thick bandage wrapped around his torso. Silent in her scrutiny of him, which could only attest to the anxiety that she must've had been feeling.

"You really don't remember?" she finally asked.

"If I had," Felix said bitterly, "do you think I'd be asking?"

"...I guess you make a point," she replied with a sigh, a tone of resignation in her voice. Despite that, she hesitated for another moment still, "Felix."

"What?"

Ingrid pursed her lips. Folded her arms, and looked him in the eye. "Would you find it hard to believe," she said, softly, "if I said it had been for reasons similar to yours?"

Felix decided he doesn’t ever want to know what those words had meant.

~*~

Time passes. Felix does not know how long it's been, since being cooped up at the infirmary with mandatory bedrest, but it's long enough to have seen Mercedes four times, Sylvain and Ingrid each twice, and Ashe just once.

He had sheepishly trailed in after Ingrid's first visit, carrying a book in hand whose cover Felix could almost – disgustingly so – instantly recognise. The image of the alleged knight of Faerghus holding such a book and being here, at the monastery with a Sylvain, Ingrid and Mercedes that Felix had not been familiar with, had been so jarring that Felix had nearly choked on his own saliva trying not to laugh when Ashe offered to read a section of the novel to him.

"You shouldn't be here," Felix had told him bluntly when Ashe was in the middle of making an enthusiastic point about the ‘valiant’ action of the fabled knight single-handedly fighting a horde of enemies that had surrounded the fortress that the king had ordered him to defend.

Ashe looked up from the book at him, startled. Then, after giving himself a moment to gather himself, he slowly closed the book the shut and held it in his lap.

"If not here," he had said, "then where should I be?"

"Literally anywhere else," Felix replied, slipping his hand through his hair that he'd been hanging loose since his awakening. "You. Ingrid. Mercedes – I don't fucking get it."

Ashe had been quiet, at first. Ducked his head and cast his gaze at the book in his lap, as though too ashamed to even look at Felix, now.

"I know this must be really hard and confusing for you," Ashe murmured, "but all of us chose this for a reason, and we still stand by it, even now. That's what I think...what I think it means to be a genuine knight. To do what I think is right. And you... You did something similar, too, Felix, even if you don't..." He paused, shaking his head. "Well. I... I just want you to know that I really look up to you because of that."

And what was Felix to do in the face of something like that? If it had been under any other circumstances, he was certain, he would've simply tried to shrug it off or downplay it, or even pretend he didn't hear any of that. But as fate would have it as though to mercilessly mock him, in such a situation Ashe's words conveyed an entirely different meaning and it was one that made Felix feel sick to the stomach.

It grows steadily as time moves on, and as Felix received more and more visits. Resting in bed does little to absolve it, and so does trying to pace to and fro the infirmary in an attempt to burn off the nervous energy. So, after Mercedes pays him yet another visit to check on his wound, in spite of the agony each movement brings him, he decides to slip out of the infirmary.

This is what he learns next:

He roams about the monastery, with a purpose and without all the same. The library, the old classrooms, the dining hall. The training grounds. Along the way he walks past a few soldiers, who stiffly bow and greet him before scampering off, their faces pale as though they had just seen a ghost. At least, Felix most certainly feels like one.

He briskly walks past them. Keeps himself on the move, until his feet finally carry him to a place he no longer expects to find himself in.

The cathedral is everything he remembers it to be. The priests, dressed in their ceremonial robes, getting things in order. Believers, standing or seated alike, bowing their heads low with their hands clasped in prayer. The choir practising their hymns, accompanied by the hum of the organ. The light pouring in through the gaping hole in the ceiling, pooling and forming a halo on the ground where debris and rubble used to lay, forming a bright, glistening pillar like an ethereal stairway to the heavens.

Despite having been raised in a land that has historically been stemmed in the religion of the Church of Seiros, Felix has never considered himself to be a pious man. As a child he attended the local service held at Castle Fraldarius' own cathedral, could memorise the common hymns sung during the service and had been taught the scripture, but that all changed after Duscur – after what was left of Glenn had been his armour and sword and their father spoke the words that Felix would never forget for the rest of his life, leaving Felix with merely a single, thin thread of hope and belief that Felix had remaining in the goddess. A thread that eventually snapped clean and disintegrated to ash after the Western Rebellion.

Why leave everything to the goddess' hands, he had thought then, when it had also meant letting them slip away from his own? Why sing praises and speak of the goddess' divine love and protection when the tragedy still happened right under her nose?

No more of this, Felix had decided. And all of his devotion turned purely to the sword and his training.

Watching Dimitri whisper to his ghosts, making promises of vengeance, blood and death as he stared blankly at the debris only strengthened Felix's resolve. Watching Dimitri swear his oaths as king, vowing to do right by his people for as long as he continues to draw breath, bathed in the light that had streamed down from above, however...

He lets out a sigh and shakes his head. There's no point in reminiscing about that, now, just as how there's none in remaining here any longer than necessary, for he obviously does not find Dimitri here.

He may never find Dimitri anywhere, he suddenly realises.

A flicker of something passes through him but it extinguishes just as swiftly as it appears before Felix managed to grasp it, as though it was never there in the first place. It could've been anything – anger, sadness, frustration, perhaps even regret – but he will never know, now. He doesn't know if he wants to know, at the end of it all.

Just as Felix is about to turn to leave – he does not want to think about where he will go, after this; simply that he no longer wishes to remain here – he spots a shadow fleeing from the corner of his line of vision. A dwarf of a figure, wearing something suspiciously a shade of teal blue billowing behind them, running ragged; and for some reason Felix is reminded of the child he had met with in his dream – nightmare? – before he had awakened. He halts in his steps, looking swiftly ahead to where the figure has gone: to the left entrance of the cathedral, to the walkway that leads to the mystical tower well-known among those who had attended the Officers Academy.

 _The Goddess Tower_ , Felix realises, something swimming in his chest and making his mind spin as he cannot help but remember.

That night six moons ago – supposed to have been six moons ago. When they had all been drowning in the preparations for Dimitri's coronation, starting the post-war efforts to mend Fódlan back together. That was the night when Dimitri was nowhere to be found in his quarters where he was supposed to have been resting, sending everyone into a frenzy as they searched high and low for him. Felix had been the one to find him, melancholically moping away by his lonesome high up in the Goddess Tower, of all places. But instead of dragging him back to his room as Felix had initially intended, they ended up...talking. Simply just that: they had talked. It was the most they had ever said to each other, in the years following Duscur.

It was the same night when Dimitri had asked Felix to take up the position of Duke. The same night when—

No. It doesn't matter.

There's someone who just headed to the Goddess Tower. The one place Felix has yet to look, the one place Felix had found Dimitri in before. Someone who might know what is going on, who can give him answers.

He prepares to take a step forward.

"Ah, Duke Fraldarius."

Felix stills. Draws in a breath, and holds it.

"How lovely it is to see you around here," the other party drawls on.

He knows that voice, Felix realises. But it's impossible. It shouldn't be possible.

He faintly registers turning his head towards the direction of the voice. He almost wants to give a derisive laugh upon recognition of who it had belonged to. Run his hand through his own hair, tug it out and question his sanity.

"It is such a relief to see that you're well enough to start moving about," the newcomer continues on flatly, a small smirk on his face. Felix wants nothing more than to rip it off himself.

"I'm seeing ghosts," is how Felix replies him, the words slipping out of their own volition, his breath shaky.

Before him, Hubert von Vestra raises a brow, looking more darkly amused than anything else. "Oh? Whatever gave me away?"

"You're supposed to be dead," Felix bites back tersely. He would know, better than anyone, having finished off the deed himself during the bloodbath at Enbarr.

Hubert should be dead, the words echo in his mind. _Should be dead, should be dead._

"Am I," Felix's unfinished deed replies blithely, completely unfazed. "And here I thought the same can be said of you."

Felix refuses to deign him with a response, still trying to wrap his mind around everything that has happened up till this point, trying not to think about how he is speaking with one who is supposed to be a ghost.

"Well, no matter." Hubert gives a disinterested hum. "I did not come here to engage in such meaningless discussion with one such as yourself." A pause. "I'm here on orders of Her Majesty, to bring you to her. She is requesting your immediate attendance."

Her Majesty. Her Majesty.

Felix grinds his teeth. His mouth goes numb with an overwhelming bitterness as the gaping gulf he has felt within him only seems to expand further, and the only way he knows he is not yet dead is how his heart thumps wildly, uncontrollably against his ribcage.

He does not wish to go. The world already makes little sense as it has, he still hasn't gone to investigate the Goddess Tower, and Felix has yet to figure anything out. If he is right, and if he goes and sees it for himself, even he has no idea what he will do.

But Felix also knows that he would be deluding himself if he believes he had any choice in the matter, in the first place.

He tries anyway. "I can't," is what he settles for. "I have to go and find—"

"Unfortunately for you, I can't simply do that. Her Majesty insists on speaking with you for an urgent matter. She would like to assure you that it would be to your benefit as well."

Felix glares daggers at him. "And if I refuse?"

Hubert's eyes glint mercilessly. "Do you truly think you are in any position to?"

The answer to that is obvious, and Felix has no choice but to relent, for the time being, going with Hubert without any further fight.

They head towards the stairs by the reception hall, and climb up. Then up another floor. As they make their way, a phantom leading another, the people around them give them a wide berth, murmuring and whispering amongst themselves.

"Pay them no mind," Hubert says to him, in a tone that sounds like he's buried a polished dagger behind each and every word. "They are simply in awe to see you in the flesh, having heard of the great deeds you have done and the contributions you have made to this army."

Felix has done nothing of the sort. Does not remember ever doing anything of the sort, which he supposes is what makes the chill down his spine run colder than it should.

They reach the third floor, where the archbishop's room is supposed to be. Or rather, where the former archbishop's room is, now reduced to nothing more than an empty bedroom. They walk past it, making a left turn to where the monastery’s stargazing terrace is, and it is only when they reach it and Hubert steps aside that Felix finally sees.

A figure draped in red, as though wearing the blood of those who have died in her conquest. A golden crown of horns atop silvery white hair. Black feathers reaching out for the sky on each of her shoulders, like the wings of an eagle taking flight.

"Your Majesty," Hubert speaks with a bow. "Duke Fraldarius is here, as you have commanded."

And Edelgard von Hresvelg turns, her golden armour gleaming with the light of the setting sun.

Her piercing lilac eyes – clearly human, clearly alive – fall on Felix, first, regarding him as one would an enemy: cautious, wary. Cold and unforgiving, never pitiful, as though she wishes to strike him down from where he stands in that very instant. Felix wonders why she doesn't, anyway, when she has every reason to. When she is supposed to have every reason to.

Then, after what feels like an eternity of falling under the emperor's scrutiny, she looks to Hubert, next, and her gaze softens – but only very slightly. Still all too mindful of Felix's presence.

"Thank you, Hubert," she says. "You may take your leave."

Is that really wise, Felix wishes to say but doesn't.

It is impossible to tell if her retainer thinks similarly to him, because the raven-haired man bows again and says, "As you wish, Your Majesty," and leaves them without haste, without any question.

Felix feels rather than sees the emperor's cold gaze redirecting back to him. So he looks and glares back, saying nothing.

This seems, against all odds, to make the corners of her lips curl upwards, very subtly.

"I see," she says. "You are indeed the genuine Felix Hugo Fraldarius. This is most certainly unexpected."

If everything he's learned about this world since waking up hasn't already thrown Felix off his axis completely, her words do. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

She doesn't answer him. "Tell me, Felix," she says instead, "do you recall the last conversation we had with each other?"

He does. It would be difficult not to, seeing how it was also the very first time they ever spoke with each other.

It had been before the Battle of the Eagle and Lion, six years ago when they had still been at the academy. There had been an interhouse sword tournament, and the Professor had chosen Dimitri and Felix as the representatives for the Blue Lions. Felix had won all of his bouts, one of which had been against Edelgard herself, and emerged victorious after a tight match with Petra in the finals, whom Dimitri had lost to during his own match-up against her in the semi-finals.

At that time, Felix had ignored all of Dimitri's attempts to congratulate him, and Dimitri, as always, had deflated and let him be. That had not been the case at all with Edelgard, who had taken the initiative to approach him after said tournament, when there had been no one else in the vicinity.

"I must admit, that had been quite the display," had been her first words to him, which Felix had not been flattered by, with how stiff she had sounded. "Although I can't help but notice the flare of your Crest in that final match-up. As it had during ours."

And Felix questions, using the exact same words he had said to her back then: "What does that have to do with anything?"

"Nothing of significance," was what she had said, then, taciturn and indifferent. "I was simply making a passing remark, is all."

"Probably more than you realise," is what she tells him now, looking sadder than he had thought her capable of.

Felix had been furious, back then, at the insinuation that he had won by virtue of his Crest. He knew he would've won either way, with or without it, but Edelgard, it had seemed, had a differing opinion. So he had told her just that and walked off before she could offer anything further on the subject, caring not for the fact at how, for a split second, she had been visibly taken aback at his words.

It's ironic how it had taken fighting in a war instigated by that very same girl for him to have realised that it likely ran much deeper than just that.

But that war is – should have been – over. And it had ended with Edelgard's death, by Dimitri's hands. The same Edelgard standing before him now, without as much as a speck of blood or a scratch on her.

 _The dead are dead,_ he reminds himself, _and the living are living._

And those who are dead should no longer be capable of speaking. And yet.

And yet.

"How the hell are you still alive?" Felix finds himself asking, his tone clipped.

Edelgard blinks, then schools her features into a frown and says, slowly, "What do you mean by that?"

"You. And that retainer of yours. You're supposed to be dead. But you're not." Felix's glare hardens. "Why?"

"Is that what you think is happening here?"

"I don't even know what to fucking think," he blurts out, a sudden wave of fury gripping him and bleeding into his every word. He starts pacing about the terrace, looking at anywhere but the only other person present, trying to ignore the pain shooting across his chest and radiating up to his jaw as he does. "All I know is – is that I woke up to this, this mess of a place, find out that the war only somehow just ended when it's supposed to have been over for six moons," he heaves a breath, "for _six_ moons, and I was a part of _your_ army, that you and that retainer of yours are still alive while everyone else is—"

 _Not everyone,_ his mind unhelpfully supplies, and the grim reminder only serves to make things worse.

His wound pulses and he has to stop to grip at it. But it only continues to rage on like the storm within Felix's heart that has devoured everything in its path, and Felix barely suppresses a hiss as it does.

The world drowns into a deafening silence after his outburst, until all Felix can hear is the sound of his blood coursing through his veins and pulsing in his ears. He can feel Edelgard evaluating him, in that infuriatingly cool, level-headed way of hers – every bit the emperor who so calmly and easily threw the whole nation into a bloody war without so much as batting a fucking eye – and with each passing moment he seethes more and more.

Until he hears said emperor let out a chuckle.

"'This mess of a place', I see," she says. "I suppose, to someone such as yourself, that would be how this seems to you."

"...You find that amusing," he grits out, still refusing to look at her.

"I don't," she answers immediately. "At least, not in the way you think." A pause. "In fact, in certain ways, I find myself in agreement with you."

And that has him turning to face her, spotting the wry smile on her face, the resigned shift of her shoulders. His eyes widen slightly as the anger drains away from him. "What?"

"Felix. Do you recall the last conversation we had with each other?" she tries, again.

Felix frowns. "Why is that even—"

"It had been after the interhouse sword tournament," she continues. "You had been the victor. I came to speak with you, and made a passing remark on the way your Crest aided you in battle. You told me that you would've won even without it and left before I could clarify myself, and we never once spoke to each other again. Correct?"

"...Why are you even asking me since you clearly remember?"

"I'll be upfront with you. The reason I elected to speak with you, back then, had been because I heard that you possess a Major Crest, and I wanted to seek your opinion on how that had impacted your upbringing. But more importantly, I had heard of your strained relationship with Dimitri."

Felix scowls. He sees where she is going with this. "So after all that, you wanted to win me over to your side? That's just a load of—"

Wait.

Felix blinks, suddenly unable to find the words he means to say, because _he sees where she is going with this,_ and he has no idea how to even respond to that.

Edelgard nods, composed and firm. "You are right," she tells him. "And evidently, that didn't work out in my favour."

Felix would've snorted at that, if he isn't already too busy wrapping his mind around the implications of what Edelgard is saying. _But it's impossible,_ his mind echoes for the umpteenth time. Impossible, impossible—

(But if it's between this and the other alternative, Felix would rather have this over the other any day, any second. And he would always choose this, again and again.)

"This world isn't real," he finally mutters. He gestures, vaguely, at the sky, at the terrace, at her. "You—aren't real."

And Edelgard looks at him, a solemn and pensive expression on her face. "Perhaps," is all she has to say, and Felix knows she isn't lying when she does, because even she has no clue, she has no fucking clue.

Felix can't help it. He laughs. Quietly, scathingly. Because now – now he thinks he is beginning to understand.

And he learns, how terrifyingly hollow a sound that his heart hammering in his chest makes, when he has no idea if it is even truly there at all.

~*~

About over twenty years ago, a plague had swept across the lands of Faerghus and taken the lives of countless of her children.

The Queen Consort, Dimitri's mother, had been one of them, succumbing to the illness not long after Dimitri had been born, and the whole nation had mourned for a month for her passing.

The Duchess of Fraldarius, Glenn and Felix's mother, had not been one of them. But she, too, had passed, when Felix had been terribly young – too young, Glenn had said, with that distant, forlorn look in his eyes, the kind that Felix couldn't relate to when he had been a child; too young to have properly mourned for her as the duchy had, as their father had. Instead, Felix had lamented the loss of his mother in the only way he could, as his instinct as an infant would have it, by crying ceaselessly, absolutely inconsolable despite Rodrigue's weary attempts to settle him down, only stopping when it had seemed that he had cried himself to exhaustion, and starting up again when he had rested enough.

("Did you cry too, Glenn?" Felix had asked, to which Glenn scoffed and said, his voice hoarse and shaky, as he turned his head away, "Of course not.")

Their mother had not been one of them, but Felix had been told that she was and that she had passed because of it shortly after Felix's birth, and it would be one of the many lies, he would learn, that he had been raised to believe to be the truth.

For instance –

His mother was said to have been sickly since a young age. Always falling ill with a vicious fever during the winter, confined to her bed even during the warmer months, and so it was not a surprise that she would fall victim to the plague that had terrorised their homeland.

Felix knew this to be untrue, because Glenn had told him that their mother was the strongest person he ever knew – stronger than even their father, and it was precisely because it was Glenn that Felix could find himself believing this – that she once braved a blizzard on her pegasus to aid their father in battle armed with nothing but her tomes and Levin Sword when the Sreng army had launched a surprise attack, threatening to break through Gautier's defence lines; that she despised, more than anything, to be forced within the castle grounds, always preferring the freedom of the skies and the soil of the earth to the exquisite curtains and pristine stone walls.

This was who their mother was, Glenn said.

For instance –

His mother was said to have had dark violet hair that flowed past her shoulders, reaching her waist; eyes that were like dull copper, unpolished and unrefined, weary with the burden of illness; and her skin, so pale especially during the last few weeks leading up to her passing, that it had been nothing short of a miracle that she had managed to last that long.

But Felix had seen it for himself: in the painting that his father hung on the wall of his chambers, there was a woman who had pretty light purple hair, like the colour of the rare, hardy lavender that somehow managed to thrive in the poor soils of Faerghus; her eyes the colour of the setting winter sun shining brightly across the horizon, so full of life and joy, with a warm smile on her vibrant face. And Felix knew, instinctively in his heart, that she had been his mother.

This was how his mother had looked when she found out she had Felix, his father said.

For instance –

His mother was said to have loved him, even before Felix had been born. She had been the one to come up with his name, and had been so firmly set on it that she threatened to set Father's hair on fire when he had approached her with a list of his own suggestions not knowing she had already made up her mind. Her eyes supposedly brightened every time someone spoke of her pregnancy, and she laughed each time she felt Felix kick and even tried to chase his movements with her own hands. She spoke to him very often, his father told him, which absolutely did not make Glenn jealous, Glenn said, because their mother had loved Glenn too. For she had been the one to play with Glenn and read to him stories when Father could not, tucking him to bed and singing lullabies to him – "It was horrible." Glenn sniffed. "But she still tried, anyway." – keeping him warm with her magic when the furs hadn't been enough.

This, Felix knew, was nonsense. Because if she loved them that much, then why did she leave them? If she had been that healthy and happy, then how could she fall sick? If she had been that strong, then why couldn't she fight to live on?

"You must understand, Felix," Father had said, looking sad. "Your mother didn't want to leave. Nobody wanted her to. But sometimes, life doesn't always go the way we want it to, and we must learn to accept that as your mother bravely had."

Felix didn't understand. So he sobbed. And ran and ran and ran, until his feet brought him to Glenn.

"It's not that simple, Fe," Glenn told him, which wasn't what Felix wanted to hear.

"Why can't it be?" Felix cried.

Glenn looked away. "Not everyone gets better when they fall sick," he muttered. "There's different kinds of sickness. Kinds that you get better from, and kinds that you don't. And Mother, she..."

"But she wasn't sick!" Felix protested. "Mother wasn't—"

Glenn's expression turned dark and scary. The air went so cold, so still. He looked out of the door of his chambers, closed it shut then walked back and said, in a low whisper, "Who told you that?"

Felix sniffed and rubbed at his face. "No one."

Glenn held his shoulders, and Felix could tell he was trying to be gentle. "I need to know, Felix. Who told you?"

Felix decided, in that moment, to push Glenn's hands off. "I said no one!"

Glenn did not try again. Instead, he bent down on one knee and looked at Felix in the eye. "I'm serious, Fe. This is not something anyone should be joking or spreading lies about, especially to you. You have to tell me so that I can tell Father—"

Felix's eyes which were still brimming with tears widened. "No!" He reached out and grabbed fistfuls of Glenn's shirt. "No, Glenn, you can't tell!"

"And why not?"

"They didn't know!" Felix blurted out. "I was just – I was just hiding, they didn't know I was listening! You can't tell, Glenn! Father would get mad..."

Glenn raised a brow. "Hiding? Why would you—" Glenn blinked as the realisation dawned upon him. He smacked his forehead so hard Felix heard it clap through the air. "Holy mother of Seiros," Felix heard him grumble.

Felix gingerly let go of his brother's shirt. "Glenn?"

"Of all the blasted days..." Glenn muttered, heaving a gruff sigh. "No wonder you've been acting so weird since then."

It was supposed to be a fun and enjoyable day, Felix recalled. His closest friends – Dimitri, Ingrid and Sylvain – had all come over to the Fraldarius castle to eat and play and stay the night, keeping up their celebratory routine whenever each other's birthdays had rolled around.

During one of their rounds of hide-and-seek, when Dimitri had been the seeker, Felix had chosen to hide in the storage room at the stables. It was usually locked by the stablehands after they were done feeding and tending to the horses, but for some reason when Felix had come across it the door had been slightly ajar, and so thinking that the stablehands hadn't finished with their work yet he slipped inside and settled in a corner behind some of the barrels that were kept there.

After what felt like forever and nobody had found him yet, Felix started to panic, but he also didn't want to risk running outside and being spotted and losing the round, so he remained seated where he was. Finally, he heard footsteps and muffled conversation approaching him, and he couldn't help himself from breaking into an excited smile. He peaked between the opening between the barrels, and was sorely disappointed to see that it hadn't been his friends who had come but two people dressed in the attire that he vaguely recognised as those belonging to the stablehands.

"...acting up again," Felix heard one of them say. "She probably misses her."

The other had sighed and looked to be searching for something among the materials stocked on the shelves. "There's nothing to be done about it," he said. "She always gets this way at this time of the year. Pegasi are amazing creatures, that way."

"...And then we have everyone in the castle celebrating Lord Felix's birthday at the same time. It's...ironic, isn't it?"

Felix pulled his knees closer to himself, keeping silent. What had a pegasus to do with anything with him?

"Sir," the first stablehand said, "when do you think... Duke Fraldarius will tell the young lord?"

"About what, exactly?"

The first stablehand was quiet, for a moment. "I don't think," he said, carefully, "I'd be able to keep on lying, if I'd been in the same position. Lord Felix will find out eventually, anyway. Wouldn't it be better to—"

"No," the second stablehand cut him off. "It is...easier, this way. Not only for Duke Fraldarius and the young lords, but for all of us as well."

"But..."

"I understand where you're coming from," the other man continued, his words a murmur. "But Lord Felix is still just a child. Can you really bear to let a child so young know that it had not been the plague that had taken his mother from him? That his mother had actually passed just moments after his birth, and not a year after?"

There was no reply. Felix had drawn in a breath and unknowingly held it.

"It is bad enough that Lord Glenn..."

Felix tuned out everything they spoke about, after that. He wasn't sure if they even did. All he knew, then, was that he didn't want to stay in hiding anymore.

 _Dima,_ he had wanted to cry out. Why hadn't Dima found him yet? Dima loved the stables, as did Sylvain and Ingrid. Surely he would've thought to look for Sylvain or Ingrid here, if not for Felix, at the very least.

He felt his lower lip wobble and a whimper about to crawl its way out of his throat, bit it down and covered his mouth, and waited until the stablehands were long gone before he bolted for the door.

It did not take long for Dimitri to find him, for him to have found Dimitri. Felix had flown straight into his arms, knocking them both to the ground, and bawled his heart out. He never told anyone what happened, not even Dimitri. He couldn't bring himself to.

Until Glenn had changed that.

Fury flashed across Glenn's face as Felix recounted the story, looking as though he was more than ready to drive his sword through something. But he pulled himself together and shook it off when Felix was done, eventually giving a stiff nod of understanding. He didn't ask any further – simply took a deep breath before slowly releasing it, frowning deeply, as though searching for the right words to say.

By that time, Felix's tears had mostly dried but his head had pounded terribly, and Glenn had to guide him to his bed. It had already been long past his usual time to sleep, by then, which only compounded the exhaustion that weighed at his eyelids, forcing them to close, so Felix hadn't protested against it.

It had, apparently, given Glenn the time he needed, because as he lifted Felix to his bed and pulled the covers over him, he said, abruptly: "You heard it wrong, Fe."

Felix blinked tiredly. "Huh?"

"About Mother," Glenn clarified. He sighed. "It's true, Mother died just after you were born, but she had truly been sick. I... I saw how she had been like, though I didn't really quite understand it, then. Father did, too. It was...bad. I don't know how else to say it, but it was really...bad." He paused. "Nobody else in the castle got it. The healers thought it was the plague at first, but later they told Father that it was just something about Mother herself, that it was Mother's illness. They were all saying how much of a miracle it was that she didn't pass anything to you. Or me, too, for that matter."

Felix felt his eyes begin to sting again as it burned his awareness back to sharpness. There was nothing miraculous about it, only a terrible amount of sadness that wouldn't go away.

(It would be a very long time before he would realise, after looking back on this – if he does ever look back on this – that the sadness he felt had not been for his own sake.)

He wasn't an idiot. He might've been just a child, and there were certain things he didn't know or fully understand yet – but he wasn't an idiot.

His throat tightened around the question that he had kept buried within himself this entire time, and for a moment Felix found himself unable to speak. But this was something he had to ask. This was something he had to know.

He clutched onto the covers, raised his head and met Glenn's eyes. The eyes that were the same shade of blue as their father's. "Was it...because of me?"

Glenn flinched, making a strangled sound as though he had just been stricken. All the colour drained from his face as he looked at Felix with widened eyes.

"No," he said, his breath hitched. "Goddess _no._ It had nothing to do with you."

"Then why didn't..." He stopped when his vision started to blur and he felt his eyes grow wet. His fingers curled into the threads of his quilt as he battled the urge to cry. "Why didn't anyone just…tell me?"

"Because we don't want you thinking like – like _this_ ," Glenn said, making some form of wild gesture that Felix couldn't decipher. "It's not worth it."

Felix didn't understand.

"It's not worth it," Glenn repeated, as though sensing this, growing more agitated but trying not to show it. Then his expression hardened as his gaze turned sharp. "Do you trust me, Fe?"

Not quite knowing where that came from, Felix blinked in bewilderment at first, but sniffed and nodded regardless.

"Then trust me when I say that you had absolutely nothing to do with whatever happened to Mother. Trust me when I say that there's no point in dwelling on the past or what other people are saying about it." The corners of Glenn's lips curled further downwards. "So what if you know now or if you had known earlier? It doesn't change the fact that Mother is gone. Thinking about it isn't gonna bring her back. Nothing will ever bring her back."

He paused, then. Felix could see his fists trembling.

"Glenn..."

Glenn shook his head. "But Father is still here," he continued. "His Majesty and His Highness, too. And Ingrid, and Sylvain. The people of Fraldarius, and of Faerghus. They're all still here, aren't they?"

Felix nodded slowly.

Glenn sat on Felix's bed, shifting closer to Felix, and leaned against the headrest.

"And that's just the thing, Fe," Glenn said. "Don't waste time thinking about things that can't be changed. Instead, think about what you can do, right now, for the people who are still here."

"What I can do?"

The words were starting to sound familiar, but Felix couldn't place where he had heard them from.

"That's right," Glenn said. "Like how Father works hard as the Shield to the King and Faerghus. Like how I'm training to become a knight. A goal to work towards, something to keep us moving – because that's what we do, Felix, when we're still alive. We keep on moving."

Felix frowned slightly as he batted away the tears. "But I'm... I'm not as strong as you or Father."

"Fe, I'd be scared shitless if you already are at this age," Glenn pointed out with a snort. Then, he added, more seriously, "Besides, you don't have to be, y'know?"

"I don't?"

"Of course not," Glenn told him, as though it was the most obvious fact in the world. "Your name is Felix, right? Not Glenn or Rodrigue. You have your own goals and dreams to think about, and only you can choose whether you want to bring that into reality. So just," he adjusted Felix's covers with a grunt, "be yourself. Think about what you, and only you, can do, and keep working towards that. That way, you'll be stronger than anyone, only in the way you can."

Glenn, Felix had thought, sometimes said things that were difficult to understand, but Felix could still manage to gather the gist of it. He responded with silence, however, neither nodding nor expressing any disagreement, because on one hand he knew what Glenn said sounded right and had set him at ease, but on the other he couldn't imagine himself being anywhere close as strong Glenn or their father had been.

"Is that how you're so strong, Glenn?" Felix asked instead.

"You betcha it is," Glenn scoffed, and Felix couldn't help the smile at seeing Glenn return to his usual self.

"Then I'll think about." Felix shifted under the covers. "Glenn?"

"Yeah?"

Felix glanced away. "...Can you tell me one more story about her?" he asked softly. "I promise, this will be the last time."

Glenn was quiet, at first. Then, he adjusted Felix's pillow, made sure Felix was properly tucked in and warm, before he said, his voice tight: "Of course, Fe."

True to his word, Felix never asked nor spoke of his mother ever again, after that. He didn’t have to. As the years passed, the vague attachment he had to the concept of her faded to the point of non-existence, like a forgotten relic of the ancient past stored away and never to be seen again. It had been inevitable, perhaps, since Felix had never truly been able to connect to her as a mother and son should – never had the chance to, rather – and he had grown up on nothing but mere hearsay about her, never knowing which version of his mother to believe in.

Glenn had been different. He had always been different, really. But in this regard, he had especially been so, and, maybe, because of that it had been Glenn who could teach him to think hard on what truly mattered. What he should be moulding his life towards.

And it had been Glenn's death, and experiencing the aftereffects of it first-hand, seeing how the memory of his life could be so easily and nauseatingly distorted, that finally made Felix understand what Glenn had truly been trying to tell him, all those years ago.

~*~

For all Felix has ever understood about the concept of death, he has never expected it would turn out to be anything remotely like this.

Death is the end of everything, he has always believed. Life experiences. Memories. Feelings. Pain, suffering, regrets – all of those no longer matter, when one is dead; all drawn to a close, blanketed by the curtain of nothingness. Nothing is left of the person but a body buried in the ground or ashes tossed to the wind, and the memories they've left in the people they've left behind. People they used to care about but no longer do, precisely because they are no longer capable of it.

Felix would know. Has known, since he had been a child, the impact that one's death had on those that knew them.

So the conclusion should stand that it is impossible for there to be a life following death. To be alive is to keep striving forward. To be alive is to feel, to breathe, to eat, to have wants and needs. But one no longer has any of that in death, and so the notion of being alive in death is utterly ludicrous and does not make an ounce of sense.

It's what has Felix convinced he has been hallucinating. Either that or he is stuck in a dream, or a nightmare, rather. Or, even more outrageously, being transported to some alternate reality. All of those, Felix can certainly understand and accept as being plausible, because they at least make much more sense compared to whatever he is apparently going through now.

"...I thought the afterlife is supposed to be more like some sort of frozen wasteland," Felix remarks dryly. "Or being burned by the eternal flames of the goddess' wrath."

Edelgard, for some inexplicable reason, looks vaguely amused at this. "You never struck me as someone who believed in things like that."

She's surprisingly on mark with that, Felix thinks, or maybe he has always just been that easy to read. Felix doesn't know what to feel about either possibility, so he simply gives a shrug and a grunt as way of a response.

It's hard to tell if she has seen through this, too, because she doesn't comment on it. Instead, she keeps the conversation going by sharing with him what she knows of this place, and he finds out that even she doesn't really know much about it.

"Time works differently, in this realm," is one of the things she tells him, as she tilts her head towards the sky. "Or perhaps, there is no concept of time to speak of, in the first place."

How oddly fitting with his understanding of death. The end of a person's time in life; one's time coming to a standstill, never to move forward again. Perhaps that would explain why his wound still hasn't shown any signs of healing, because such a thing would be impossible, now, in a realm such as the afterlife where time, too, is considered dead in a sense – that is, if the concept of this place existing is to even be believed at all.

But then, what of the pain he felt throbbing from the wound? If he is truly dead, how is there still blood and pus whenever Mercedes changes the bandages for him? What would even be the point in that at all, from the start? It doesn't make sense. There must be something he's missing.

And what of Sylvain, he feels his mind begin to race. And Ingrid, Mercedes, and Ashe?

For this, Edelgard has no clear answer.

"I have not seen any of your allies that you have mentioned," she says, which is utterly ridiculous because he certainly has, and Edelgard has been here – wherever 'here' really is – longer than he.

"Well they have to be hanging around somewhere here, right?" Felix points out. "They've been walking in and out of the infirmary as if they own the place. They must've come from," he glances around the terrace, "somewhere."

Edelgard shakes her head. "I have not seen them," she says, as though it warrants repeating.

"I heard you the first time," Felix snaps.

"But still you fail to grasp the situation and the implications of your words," Edelgard replies calmly. "Do not forget where we are now. Is it possible for your allies to be in the same place as we are, right at this moment?"

"You're the one who's not getting it," Felix bites back. "I'm not blind. I know who I saw. What I'm asking is _how_."

If he is truly dead.

If he is truly dead and this is the afterlife as Edelgard is trying to lead him to believe, then seeing the others here would mean the same had happened to them, which Felix knows is utter and absolute bullshit. The fact that everyone but him – and possibly Edelgard, if her words are to be trusted – seems to remember things so jarringly differently is enough to tell him that something else is going on.

Which means that Felix is not, in fact, dead, and this isn't the afterlife. Of course he can't be dead – he can still feel himself breathe. To see, to hear, to speak with the others and have them respond back. To feel pain, to bleed. Things that a living being can do, and a corpse can't.

The questions still remain: how are Edelgard and Hubert alive, and why is Felix the only one different from the rest of his companions? And where are Dimitri and the Archbishop, and the others he has yet to come across since waking up? And who exactly is that child he had seen in his dream, whom he had possibly seen running to the Goddess Tower?

There can only be one possible explanation left.

Felix inwardly curses himself for believing Edelgard's words for even a split second. She was the Adrestian Emperor who started the war and had been in the league with those dark mages, for goddess' sake. How could he have so foolishly trusted an enemy's words just like that, simply because she is apparently the only other person who clearly remembers that Felix had never been part of her army?

His fingers twitch as he instinctively tries to reach for his sword, before remembering he hasn't carried one since waking here. He curses himself again. No matter. He'll just have to fight back without one. He had been trained to, like that. And if all else fails, he still has a few spells in his arsenal. He just needs to be able to cast Thunder effectively enough to hopefully stun her and buy himself time, should the situation demand it.

"Felix?" he hears Edelgard speak.

Or, rather, the one who's wearing Edelgard's skin.

"This is a trap," Felix seethes, clenching and readying his fists. "The monastery... Sylvain, Ingrid, Ashe and Mercedes. Even the Emperor and her lapdog – all of it has just been a trap. You thought you could fool me and have me fall for it, hook, line and sinker. Well, you thought wrong."

A brief moment of confusion followed by understanding passes over the Edelgard-lookalike's features. "Felix," she says, "this is no trap. You are truly—"

"Shut it," Felix says, baring his teeth. "I don't know what your goal is, but I'm not about to fucking just stand by and watch."

"Felix, this isn't—"

He shoots a Thunder spell at the false emperor's feet. She steps back, her eyes glancing downward –a laughably terrible error that someone of the true Edelgard's calibre couldn't have possibly committed. Then he lunges, not wasting even a moment to bask in the grim satisfaction of having successfully pulled that off, paying no heed to the pain shooting across his arm as he gets behind her before tackling her down. The sound of her armour crashing against the terrace reverberates throughout their surroundings.

"I'm going to give you a final chance," Felix says, his voice low as he pushes his entire weight onto the imposter's back with one hand grasped around her neck. "Tell me what you and your accomplices are here for, and maybe I'll consider letting you die painlessly."

"Felix—"

"Talk," Felix demands, cutting her off by tightening his grip. "What have you done to my friends. What have you done with—"

"Felix!"

At the sound of another voice – one that he has grown so familiar with, that he cannot possibly mistake it – a knot of cold anxiety ties itself in Felix's gut as he looks across to his right, at the entrance of the terrace.

"... _Annette_?"

"Felix!" the girl who is supposedly Annette exclaims again. "Oh gosh I heard what happened from the others so I came as fast as I could but I didn't think— Felix are you okay?!"

Felix blinks rapidly, but the image of his friend remains sharp as ever, not even showing a sign of fading away.

"What... What are you doing here?" Last he saw of Annette, she'd been all smiles and hopping excitedly even as she told him how swarmed she had been with her work at the School of Sorcery. Which is in Fhirdiad. She shouldn't be at the monastery.

"To have a look at you, silly! Why else?" she tells him, puffing her cheeks as she always does when he tells her to sing one of her strange little songs. "Come on, let's get you back to bed – what are you even thinking, getting up and moving around like that? You're going to get your wound all opened up again!"

To the bed, as in the infirmary bed? No, Felix can't go back there, not just yet. Doesn't Annette see he can't?

Edelgard is strangely very silent, Felix notices.

He shakes his head. He can't afford to get distracted. "No – get back, Annette."

"What?"

"There's," Felix pauses, struggling to explain, "some kind of...dark magic, or – or something. I don't know, but something is clearly wrong and I'm trying to get to the bottom of it."

"Well," she says, before Felix can protest, "we can figure things out together! You know, just like back in the academy days or even during the war. I mean, sure, dark magic isn't my area of expertise but I can get us the resources we need, at the very least."

At first instinct Felix wants to decline. There's a chance Annette hasn't been affected by whatever's going on, having probably only just arrived at the monastery, so he doesn't want to risk having her involvement – yet at the same time, there's no arguing her logic. Her knowledge and experience with Reason magic admittedly far outweighs his own and would certainly prove to be useful.

So he nods his assent, keeping his eyes glued to the fake Edelgard's figure on the ground and his hand around her neck. "Fine. Then you can start by helping me get this imposter to drop the illusion and spill the truth about what's happening."

The silence that follows is so stifling that for a moment, Felix thinks neither of them is even breathing. He looks up to where Annette is, and sees her stare after him blankly instead.

"Well?" he huffs.

Annette seems to purse her lips together, fumbling with her fingers. And then, after what feels like an agonisingly long moment, she shifts her foot forward.

"Um, Felix?"

"What?"

She hesitates. Glances around their surroundings, then down at where the imposter lays, then back up to meet Felix's eyes. Then puts another step forward.

"Um," she says, "there's... nobody else besides us."

_What?_

"What," he voices. "That's impossible. Look I have her—"

He looks. And finds that he does not have her. Instead, all Felix finds himself grasping is the stem of a lone red flower, its narrow petals curled like the legs of a spider, and his knees buried in a sea of shards of what appears to have been once a broken vase.

His heart leaps and races, and his head pounds along with it. His blood runs cold. It's not possible, _not possible_ , Edelgard had just been there he had just been at the star terrace he had seen the sky, the wide-open sky—

_"Oh my, I was so sure I checked for head injuries..."_

_"You finally back with us, Fe?"_

_"You really don't remember?"_

_"I know this must be really hard and confusing for you…"_

_"To have a look at you, silly! Why else?"_

_Oh,_ he thinks as he begins to realise.

There was a dark mage, he recalls, when he and Dimitri had been attacked at the Tailtean Plains. The mage had snuck up behind Dimitri, casting some sort of unknown spell. They would've unleashed it at the king, if Felix had not intervened on time. In the end, the magic hadn't hit Dimitri at all. In fact, it had hit—

 _Me,_ Felix remembers. _The magic had hit me._

It's not that everyone except for him is being affected by the work of dark magic. It's Felix himself who is, having all of his senses now warped and twisted beyond even his own recognition.

At the realisation, Felix feels his grip going slack. He doesn't realise his body is slumping forward until Annette catches him, being as careful as she can even through her usual clumsiness.

"Ack— See? This is what you get for trying to move around like that!" she chides him. "That's it. You're going right back to bed right now, mister, and I'm not taking no for an answer."

"Um," is all Felix can manage, before he does as she says because he truly cannot think of what else to say or do. She helps him with it, and he finds that her hands are as cold as Mercedes' own, radiating frigidity even through the gloves she usually wears and he can't help but shudder.

"Oh no, are you getting cold?" Annette says, appearing worried and flustered. "That's... That's not a good sign."

"Annette…"

"No, no, it's okay," she continues, as though deaf to Felix's words. "Things'll be fine. ...Things will turn out fine, I promise!"

"What do you—"

"I can do this!" She breathes. "I have to."

Felix finds he is unable to formulate a proper reply in the face of her words and that fierce determination blazing in her eyes.

With that, she sets herself down by his bedside and gets to work, though he hasn't a clue what that work is supposed to entail. She stares at him with a strange frown and her lips stretched thin, and before Felix can say anything about it she's reached out both her arms at him and her hands emanate a bright gold glow.

Things, as it turns out, are not fine, because Felix ends up being scorched alive.

It starts with a sharp twist in the gaping wound across his collarbone. Then it throbs, pulsates, as though it has gained a life of its own and is burying its teeth deep into Felix's flesh, gnawing and chewing and trying to rip his arm off, and when they twist and turn and drive themselves deeper still it sets his wound aflame. And before long, so does every corner in his body. Every nerve, every fibre, every drop of his blood in his veins – not a single is spared as it consumes him whole.

It is anguish. It is sickening. He feels his insides fluttering and curling and crumbling onto themselves as they are torched by the invisible flames, like a paper being burned and reduced to ashes. He has the urge to hurl, to choke, to thrash and hope to be done with this, but he hasn't even the capacity for this, having nothing left in him. It burns until there is nothing for Felix to even feel.

He hears screaming, in the hazy distance. Someone shouting. Yelling. But at whom, Felix doesn't know. He's surprised he even has his ears left, at this point, when he can't even sense where they are.

"It's okay, Felix," he thinks he hears someone say. "You're going to be—"

Then the world fades to silence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is it the work of dark magic? Is Felix hallucinating? Is Felix actually already dead and in the afterlife, manifested by what appears to be his own personal hell? What is real, and what isn't? What is even going on in this chapter? When will the author stop asking the readers questions? We shall see.
> 
> ~
> 
> \- There was supposed to have been one more scene at the end, where it would hopefully shed more light on Felix's situation, but this chapter is long enough as it is so I stopped it right there and shifted the scene to the next chapter instead.  
> \- I haven't found a good place to mention this, but I've given Felix's unnamed, practically-non-existent-in-canon mother the name Miranda, meaning "worthy of admiration". And yes, she was 100% a Dark Flier. Dark Fliers for the win  
> \- I realise in-game that you can only choose one representative for the tournaments being held at the monastery but I honestly found that rather strange since the interhouse tournament clearly allowed for two representatives from the opposing houses and the idea that the opponents just...sit there in a pre-fixed line-up for each match baffles me a bit. So I re-imagined it such that the interhouse tournament allows for two representatives but what we've been shown in-game are the matches for the one who eventually comes out victorious.  
> \- Yes I was being not very subtle with the symbolism of the red spider lily being planted in that particular scene. It's probably the one hint that will either confuse you further or clue you in to the true answer behind what is happening with Felix. It still remains to be seen whether that flower is even really there or not, so that's another thing to think about haha


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> CW: discussions about death and the afterlife, grief/mourning, and mentions of Dimitri's mental health.

There goes a saying in Faerghus that has been passed down since times of old:

That the souls of those who died with regret end up in the depths of the underworld – a cold, dark and murky place that the dead spend the rest of their afterlife trying to claw their way out of, seeking to return to the light of the living and to have their desires fulfilled before they can finally allow themselves to rest. That these lost souls are doomed to wander endlessly in the darkness and guilt of their own creation, forever unable to find true peace.

Along a similar vein, there is another less well-known saying that goes like this:

That one who has borne great and heavy sins and committed unforgiveable crimes from their time among the living would find their soul scorched by the eternal flames, the manifestation of the goddess' wrath upon them. That they would be left to suffer ceaselessly in those flames, speared upon a pillar of light that burns away their sins, perpetually chained to the blazing domain of torment.

And then there goes another:

That those who died without a shred of regret, having lived a satisfactory and admirable life, would go on to meet with the goddess in her realm in the sky. That their souls would soar – unchained and content, at complete peace with themselves and the world – to the heavens, where they would find their new everlasting home among the stars, shining upon their loved ones as they watch over them from above, to be their guiding light in the uncertainty of life.

His mother had most surely belonged to the latter, as Glenn had once told him.

"She died with a smile on her face," Glenn said, after Felix had learned of the truth, "holding you in her arms, Fe."

He doesn't want to think where Glenn had gone. Doesn't want to think where his father had gone. He doesn't believe in any of those preposterous sayings anyway.

Dimitri, however, has always thought differently. Had been, for a period of time – a very long period of time – so deep in such beliefs that he could not even turn his attention toward the living, risking his own life and humanity to become the mouthpiece for the dead upon which they strung their gravestones over, if only for the sake of easing their eternal suffering.

There had been a moment, from before then. Long before the war, before the Western Rebellion, before Duscur, before Glenn had even been knighted.

"Felix," Dimitri had said, quietly.

Felix turned to him. Saw him staring up at the night sky, where the snow had been drifting down. "What is it, Dima?"

"...Where do you think we'll go, after we die?" Dimitri murmured.

Felix felt his heart jolt with fear in his chest as his entire frame started to tremble. It had not been from the cold of the Faerghus winter.

"Wh—why are you suddenly asking about that?" he replied, frantic as he did the first thing he could think of: grab Dimitri's hand and cling onto it so tight he dared the goddess herself to try and force him to let go. "I don't want you to die, Dima!"

"Oh," was all Dimitri could say, at first. He had been frowning, then, looking as though he wasn't quite sure what he had wanted to say, himself. "I don't want to die either."

"Then why are you talking about...about something like this?"

Dimitri glanced down at their intertwined hands. Then at Felix. Then back up at the sky.

"I was just thinking," he said, softly, "about Loog and Kyphon."

Felix kept his grip on Dimitri's hand tight, unable to tear his eyes away from his friend's face, afraid that if he did Dimitri would fade away into the snow.

He shifted closer and closer, until they had almost been huddling as they so often did when growing up together.

"What about them?" Felix ventured to ask.

"...It was written in the history scrolls," Dimitri started explaining, "and some of the stories we've read that Kyphon had died before Loog did, right?"

"...Yeah it was," Felix replied.

It was a well-known fact amongst Faerghans – that many years into Loog's reign, an exceptionally skilled assassin had managed to sneak into his private chambers in order to murder the King. Just as the blade was about to plunge into Loog's chest, Kyphon, who had arrived in the nick of time, managed to knock the assassin back. The scuffle, however, had turned into a violent maelstrom with the both of them being evenly matched in terms of experience and mastery over the sword. In the end, Kyphon had managed to quell and put down the assassin, but traded his sword arm – and eventually his life as he succumbed to his wounds – in the process.

And of this tragic incident, King Loog had famously said the words that would be ingrained in all those who were born on Faerghus soil: 'My sword and my shield may have been wrested from me. Yet I shall not lose heart, lest I risk rendering meaningless this grave, precious sacrifice he has made in order to save a soul as unworthy as mine.'

Dimitri continued gazing upwards. Felix felt his fingers curl around his own through the gloves, returning Felix's grip.

"And then it was also said," Dimitri went on, "that having lived a fulfilling life as Loog's sworn sword and shield, and being so beloved by the people, Kyphon's departed soul had made its home in one of the brightest stars in the Faerghus sky. The star that we now know as—"

"That we know as 'The King's Right Hand'," Felix finished for him. "I know all that, Dima. What does it have to do with what you're trying to say?"

Dimitri fidgeted. And then, finally, he looked away from the starless sky, and turned back to Felix. The snowfall grew heavier and heavier, until Felix had to squint through it to even see Dimitri's face.

"If Kyphon had ended up among the stars," he spoke, "then where did Loog go?"

Felix did not know what to say, for that, too, had been a well-known fact: for all the old sayings about a world after death, there had not been one that could appropriately describe what had happened to Loog after his own. Kyphon's had been passed down by word of mouth and written folklore, that apparently the King of Lions himself had instructed the historians and storywriters to inscribe, which was how it managed to survive even until this age. Yet there had been none of such records for Loog, not even among his own descendants, and where he had passed on to could only become a subject of pure speculation.

Some had theorised that he had gone to be with the goddess herself in her own personal domain, rising further than Kyphon had in recognition for his deeds in granting Faerghus its independence. Some had theorised that he had gone on to another unknown, even less spoken-of realm altogether, one that housed the souls of ancient rulers of old who had changed the course of history. And still some others had theorised that his soul had gone on to a cycle of rebirth, choosing to lead and remain – in whatever capacity he could – among his people.

Felix himself never particularly cared about this. Or even about where Kyphon had ended up. Things like a world after death itself had sounded silly to his own ears, because who could even know whether such things existed and still managed to live and tell the tale? All he knew and wanted, then, was to simply stay by Dimitri's side. For however long he could, for however long he was allowed.

So he had told Dimitri: "I don't know." Then he added, puffing his cheeks: "Nobody does, Dima. You know that."

"I do," Dimitri admitted quietly.

"So why," Felix was starting to grow weary of asking this, "are we even talking about it?"

Dimitri smiled sadly. It was barely visible through the blanket of snow.

"Because," he said, "I don't want that to be us, Felix."

And this – this Felix could finally understand.

"Well— Well then we won't!" Felix declared. He let go of Dimitri's hand in order to wrap his arms around him instead, pulling Dimitri into the tightest embrace he could muster. The snow grew heavier still, and Felix could hear the wind howling in the distance – all the signs that they should be making their way back into the comfort and shelter of the castle instead of remaining out in the open field of the gardens – but Felix didn't care. The servants would be coming any moment to find them and drag them back, anyway. But this, he had to let Dimitri know, in the here and now, otherwise Felix might lose his chance to. "We don't have to be just like – like Loog and Kyphon in every way they were, Dima! That's just... That's just stupid!"

"Felix..." Dimitri breathed.

"You're gonna be an even better king that Loog ever was! And I'll be an even better swordsman than Glenn... no, than even Kyphon ever was! Then that way... That way no one's gonna come looking to— to kill you, Dima." Felix paused to bite back a sob at the mere thought. "And even if there is, I'll take them down before they can come close to you, and I'm not gonna let them land a scratch on me. I swear it!"

Dimitri was quiet, for a moment. And then he whispered, "Do you really believe that, Fe?"

Felix nodded fervently. "We're not gonna end up like Loog and Kyphon did. I won't let us."

Then, at last, he felt Dimitri return the embrace. Could feel Dimitri being so careful with the strength he exerted in that embrace, strength that he had yet to fully gain control over.

"Then I'll do the same," Dimitri promised. "I'll do whatever it takes so that that doesn't become us."

A gust of wind blew, the storm drawing closer and closer. In the near distance, muffled yells reached Felix's ears. But all that didn't matter, because Felix was warm in Dimitri's embrace, comforted and soothed by the sound of Dimitri's voice.

"Felix," said Dimitri, and it was all Felix wanted to hear. "Felix…"

"Felix, I...

_I don't want you to die, either."_

And Felix snaps his eyes open.

~*~

He finds himself no longer in the body of the small child he had once been, but of the man he has grown to be, kneeling over in the snow as a blizzard rages all around him. His gloves are buried in the frigid ground instead of the warmth of Dimitri's own. His arms have sunken into the snow instead of around his close friend's frame. And now the harsh winds of the blinding storm whip around him, cutting into his skin, when it had seemed so far away still just moments before.

"Dimitri..." he coughs out. His voice, too, has returned to the way it's supposed to sound, and the thought makes his entire throat go numb until he can barely feel himself choking on the already thin enough air.

Whatever had happened, just now. Sitting in the castle gardens. Watching Dimitri gaze at the sky as the snow fell. The talk they had, about Loog and Kyphon. The promise they had made to each other.

All of it had been a distant memory, in the days that have long gone past. The two of them had been mere children, back then. Just two foolish children who had yet to fully understand the gravity of the discussion they had, at that time.

And Felix had just relived it. Almost quite literally, in every sense of the word. It was like he had been tossed back into that very moment in time, trapped within his own body as a child, spoken the words that he remembers himself saying; like enacting out the memory in a dream, and now he has just been forcibly ripped awake from it.

But is he truly awake? How certain can he be that he is not again enclosed within yet another false reality of his own doing?

After all, just before he was hurled into that memory, he had still been at Garreg Mach monastery. He'd seen Mercedes. Sylvain. Ingrid. Ashe. Annette. He'd gone to the cathedral. He'd been called by that Emperor's lapdog. He'd met with the imposter that had worn Edelgard's face. And then Annette had tried to help him. And his arm – his entire body – had hurt so terribly that he had probably blacked out in the process.

And then – then he found himself as a child. He'd seen Dimitri. Held Dimitri. Heard Dimitri's voice.

Both of it.

_What the fuck is going on what the fuck is going on what the fuck is going on—_

"Felix."

Felix hears himself gasp lightly as he lifts his head. The cold air cuts into his throat, and he gives out another weak cough.

"Felix," the voice breathes out, a hint of relief tangible even through the serenity of it.

He tilts his head back as far as he can, his neck stiff and aching from being stuck in the blizzard.

"Prof... Archbishop Byleth?" he rasps out.

He sees, but just barely, the shadow of what looks to be his former professor give him a curt and tense nod as they continue to approach him. When they've gotten close enough until Felix can recognise some colour to their figure, he very nearly recoils when he realises that their hair and clothes are perfectly still. Unmoving despite the violent storm that is literally tearing through them, the snow appearing to pass right through their hazy body.

 _Great,_ he thinks, on the verge of bursting out in laughter. _Just fucking great._

"So," he croaks, turning away, "you're... you're one of them too, aren't you. Another figment of my imagination as a result of the dark magic."

The spectre of the Archbishop frowns slightly at this. "Felix," they say, getting down to one knee, "this is not the work of any dark magic."

"Bullshit," he hisses through his teeth.

"I am real," they continue on, firm and steady as bedrock. "What you're experiencing, and what you've experienced so far... In certain ways, they, too, have been real."

" _Bullshit_ ," he snarls again, glaring into their eyes. "I know how to tell the difference between what's real and what's not. I _know._ And this... None of this is real. None of this can be. I can _tell._ "

"There's never just one singular side to reality, Felix," Byleth says, in that strange, sagely way of theirs. "Just as how there's never just one side to people. You know this."

Felix can only bite his lip and continue glaring. The anger that burns and coils deep in his gut as he focuses all his attention on the imaginary Archbishop is all that keeps him from thinking about the cold that's pricking into his flesh.

"I realise that sounds like nonsense to you," Byleth says, calmly. "But you'll understand what I mean soon enough. Perhaps you already do."

"What is that even supposed to mean?" Felix asks, exasperated.

"You heard him, didn't you?"

"Heard what?"

The ghostly figure tilts their head, contemplating. Their eyes gaze into his own, as though seeing right through him, and the feeling of being subjected to an eerily familiar gaze like this continues to linger, sending a shudder through Felix's skin even as he forces himself to look away.

"Dimitri once told me," they suddenly say, "about how the both of you were like when you were very young."

"...Pretty sure something of the sort has happened more than once," he begrudgingly admits.

The corners of Byleth's lips quirk up into a cryptic smile. "You were always by each other's side," they tell Felix what he already knows. "At one time, you might've even been called best friends."

"Shut it," Felix instinctively snaps, glowering at them. "That's all in the past. What are you trying to trick me into by saying useless things like that?"

Byleth ignores him. "He also told me that your relationship with one another began before even the both of you were born. That because of this relationship, the both of you once made a promise to one another, when you had still been children. And that he has yet to uphold his end of this promise."

Felix goes completely rigid. They'd never told anyone about that. Not even to Glenn – because Glenn would just find a way to poke fun at them, at Felix in particular; or Sylvain – because the least they need is for Sylvain to have yet another embarrassing story about their childhood to spill to other people; or Ingrid – because Ingrid, so enamoured she had been with the legendary heroes who had founded the Kingdom, would've only told them the impossibility of the challenge they had set for themselves.

They hadn't told anyone. So why does Byleth...?

No. More importantly, why does Byleth know what Dimitri had said – that night, six moons ago, at the Goddess Tower. That night, Dimitri had asked him—

_"Felix... Do you really believe that I...?"_

Felix cranes his neck towards the sky. "Dimitri?" he murmurs.

The cold winds only seem to roar in response, and for a moment he thinks he hears a whisper of his name brush against his ears. He feels something in his chest constrict at that, so tight that it becomes all the harder to breathe.

He must've been hearing things, then. Dimitri is nowhere in sight, after all, so how could it have been him? It also wouldn't be the first time something like this has happened.

But it certainly isn't something Felix would've expected to experience all over again.

_Dimitri... Just where—_

"He's safe with us, Felix," he hears Byleth say. "Waiting, just as the rest of us are."

It takes a moment for Felix to realise he has likely spoken his thoughts aloud. He gradually lowers his head to meet Byleth's eyes. "Waiting?"

Byleth simply peers at him, their face completely unreadable. But at such a proximity, even with the snow passing through their figure, there's almost no mistaking the slight twitch to the corners of their lips.

"That's right," they say. "So at this point, you should be worrying more about yourself. You owe that much to all of us, at the very least."

"You're not making any sense," Felix tells them.

But Byleth shakes their head.

"No," they reply. "The one who’s making this so much harder to understand for yourself, Felix, is you."

Felix's eyes widen, and something lurches in his chest. It takes hold of his throat, swallows the words he wants to say whole, and shoves them back down until Felix has forgotten what he means to say.

The cold winds slow to a still. The snowfall hangs suspended in mid-air. As though the world itself has been frozen over, encased in the ice of time displaced.

"I told you earlier," Byleth's lips continue to move, in that ever so calm tone of theirs, as though the change in their surroundings is nothing worth noting. "The answer already lies somewhere within you. The reason why nothing is making sense to you is because a part of you is refusing to let it, whether you realise it or not."

Felix does not reply. Does not know how to reply, and is not able to even if he does.

"I asked you once before," Byleth says, patiently, "why it is that you desire to become so strong. And now I want to ask you the same question again, Felix – because we need that from you, now." A pause. "Dimitri needs that from you."

"I don't understand," Felix finally manages to force out, his voice grating as he struggles to speak.

"You do," Byleth amends. "You simply wish you didn't."

At their words, Felix feels something shatter. It sends a shockwave through his body, trembling and resonating within every inch of his being. The snow splinters, turning into a shower of shards while Felix soon finds himself falling, descending into nothingness as the ground below him fractures and disintegrates away. The shards sparkle and shine, like the twinkle of the stars in the night sky, like the glisten of the river waters in the moonlight. Like the gleam of a blade in the dark.

"Felix," and he sees Byleth, now standing – floating? – before him, looking down at him. Their figure fades, in and out, rippling like a wisp of smoke.

"Why… Why is this happening?" Felix asks. And then, when Byleth doesn't answer: "Tell me! If this isn't— If this isn't the work of dark magic," _if this is real,_ "then what the fuck is going on? Why the hell is this even happening!"

"Remember, Felix," Byleth says, as their figure grows fainter, "the reason behind your desire to grow stronger. What it is that you've been training and working so hard for. Remember it."

"What—"

Byleth gives him a small smile. "And I hope that next we meet, you'll be able to tell me."

Then they're gone. Dissolved into a glitter of dust, shimmering before his eyes, before vanishing completely as the jaws of darkness engulf him whole.

~*~

There had been a few other occasions, Felix recalled, that he had, in fact, been to the cathedral.

The day of his father's burial had been one. After they had returned from Gronder, with his body in tow, with no means of travelling to Fraldarius for the proper ceremony as per Faerghan tradition. And as for another:

"You should go to the cathedral sometime," Byleth had once said, ever so abruptly after one of their spars together.

Felix raised his brow as he brusquely wiped off the sweat that was about to roll into his eyes. "Why should I? I don't have a reason to be there."

"Oh." Byleth looked at him, their gaze unblinking. "So that means you had one before?"

"Huh?"

"You were there for quite the time during the months following our class reunion at the monastery," Byleth pointed out. "But nowadays, I hardly see you going there anymore."

"I," Felix had spoken out of pure instinct, then pausing when he realised he had no idea what it was that he had wanted to say. "I didn't have a reason then, either."

Byleth did not cease in their staring at him. If anything, it only felt like it had seemed to grow in intensity. It made Felix want to scratch all of the layers of his skin away.

"What?" he ended up snapping. "If you've got something to say, then just say it."

And that, finally, managed to get Byleth to blink, in such a slow, gradual motion that it had frankly almost seemed unnatural.

"I don't," they answered. Felix honestly could not tell if that had been their idea of a joke. "Well. Not about your reasons for going to the cathedral, at least."

Felix sighed. "Then what is it?"

"As I said earlier, you should go there sometime," they parroted their earlier words.

Felix nearly flung his arms into the air. "And I just told you I don't have a reason to."

"Perhaps not," Byleth agreed. "Yet, you don't have a reason not to, do you?"

One would usually think that not having one should be reason enough. But then again, their professor could also not be what one would consider 'usual'.

Still, that didn't change Felix's answer, so Byleth had ended up simply shrugging it off, and they had called it a day at that.

About a week later, two days after they had taken back Fhirdiad and on the day before they made their journey back to the monastery, his uncle had arrived at the capital, bringing with him a piece of unsettling news.

Said news came in the form of two crates that his uncle had personally put together, after combing through his father's quarters and office in Castle Fraldarius. And in them as his Uncle Sheldon had described to him had been a significant handful of his father's belongings: his books, weapons, letters, and other miscellaneous little trinkets that his uncle could manage to find.

Felix had the crates immediately moved to his temporary room in the castle while he had still been in Fhirdiad. And for the rest of that night, he had not opened either of them. Simply stayed up laying in his bed, staring at anywhere but the crates. And for the first night after they had returned to the monastery, he had done the same.

Some of his comrades had the sense not to ask him about them. For the curious few that didn't, he had simply told them: "Just something of my father's that my uncle wanted to give to me." And they had accepted and left it at that, not knowing that even Felix himself had yet to even see what was truly inside the crates.

More privately, Ingrid had reached for his hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze. No questions asked, no words spoken. Only shared a silent glance of understanding, and then the moment had passed like that.

Sylvain, in contrast, had caught him by the shoulder, swinging his arm across it and pulling Felix close to him, grinning all the while as he voluntarily offered to spar with him. And of course, Felix was not one to pass up on any opportunity to train, particularly if it had been Sylvain, of all people, who offered.

After taking a long and proper bath and then a snack after together at the dining hall, Sylvain and Felix then parted ways. Sylvain did not tell him exactly where he would be headed to, but knowing of the current situation that Faerghus was in now that Rodrigue had passed on, Felix had an idea what it was that Sylvain had found himself busying with.

And that had been when the thought that had been clawing at the back of his mind surfaced, for the umpteenth time, in all of its dreadful entirety:

What had it meant for him, now that his father was gone?

House Gautier might be equal in prestige as House Fraldarius, but there could only be one Margrave Gautier, just as there could only be one Duke Fraldarius at a time. The role that his father had played in the war had temporarily fallen to Sylvain's own, but Felix was not foolish enough to believe for even a second that that would last forever. His uncle could take on a share of the burden, but he had been raised primarily as a knight and military commander, not to rule a duchy or as an advisor to the crown. And his uncle had previously expressed that he had no desire to take on the title of Duke.

It was supposed to have been Glenn, not Felix – that was an unchangeable fact. Glenn, who had been appointed as part of the prince’s guards, to be Dimitri’s closest and personal knight. But Glenn was no longer here – that was also another unchangeable fact. So what was the point in even thinking about him when it wouldn't bring Glenn back? When all that was left of Glenn was his armour and sword, not even a body that could be buried?

Glenn was dead. And now, so was his father. It would only be a matter of time before Felix would officially be named the next Duke of Fraldarius. It shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone. It shouldn't come as a surprise to him. This was only the natural course of progression, the logical flow of events.

And yet.

"Oh, General Fraldarius."

Felix blinked and looked to his left, where the voice had come from.

"What a pleasant surprise to see you here," the woman he could recognise as the cathedral's counsellor said, offering him a slight bow and a smile. "I don't suppose you've come to offer your prayers to the goddess, though."

So he had wandered into the cathedral on his own without realising, it had seemed. He couldn't very well tell her that, however, so he grunted and looked away, pretending to look busy. "I don't believe in what that can help to achieve with anything," he told her bluntly.

"Well, I wonder what it is that you do believe in, then," she said, without an ounce of surprise. "I hope that, whatever it is, your faith in it will continue to sustain you through these tumultuous times and for the era of peace that surely awaits us beyond it."

Felix said nothing at that.

"Ah, that's right. Since you're here, would you like to check on the advice box?" the counsellor asked. "Perhaps somebody has left a reply for you for a note you might've placed here previously."

A note.

Oh, that was right. He did leave one in the advice box the other day, shortly after they had buried his father in the monastery graveyard. But he hadn't really expected to get a reply out of it, and if he had to be honest he hadn't really thought too much to it when he had dropped it in.

It had just been a fleeting thought. Something that he wanted to put in ink to, for reasons that he could not fully fathom himself.

The counsellor held out the box to him. Felix lifted the cover, looked for the only piece of paper that had been tied with a black thread, picked it up and held it in his hand.

He didn't open it right away. Even as he eventually returned to his room and settled on his bed, he simply stared at the paper in silence, unable to determine what to make of it. Then, when he decided he had enough with himself hesitating, he pulled away the tie and unfurled the paper.

He had been right in not expecting much when he had written this.

In truth, he hadn't quite forgotten what he had written. A part of him might've wished he had, but of course things wouldn't be so easy. After all, life doesn't always go the way people want it to. And, looking upon what he had once written and the reply he had gotten, he was sorely reminded of this fundamental fact that he had known all this while.

_'That's just how life is sometimes.'_

On that same night, Felix opened the crates his uncle had given to him. In them had been just as his uncle had described to him: books, weapons, letters, and other miscellaneous trinkets that had once belonged to his father, that were now passed down to Felix to be kept in his possession.

Books, about warfare and the history of Faerghus, and the accounts and collection of crucial information about the duchy; a total of three swords – a Brave Sword, a Levin Sword, and an old rusted sword that had not seen the light of battle in what was likely to have been centuries; letters that had been exchanged between his father and the late king himself, neatly bundled together; and a wax seal stamp bearing their family Crest, a signet ring and a silver circlet that his father had worn only during formal events, and the cloak that had once inspired so much admiration purely by looking upon it.

Everything that had not been meant for Felix. Everything that now had to be handed to him.

But there were more than just that.

Among his father's belongings, Felix also found these: a painting of his mother that his father had once shown to him as a young child; the letters that Felix had sent to his father during his time at the academy; the lance that Glenn had given to their father as a birthday present; and, of all things, a copy of 'Loog and the Maiden of Wind' and 'The Sword of Kyphon'. The edges of the covers had grown worn and jagged with loose strands sticking out, the papers had turned a dull shade of yellow, and Felix could see the specks of dust flying into the air when he flipped through the pages.

He could not fathom why his uncle had thought fit to pack those novels in, even if they had belonged to his father. Felix had no need of the fairytales that he had been raised to so foolishly believe in, especially if they had been an instrument for instilling the revolting notion of chivalry in all of Faerghus' minds. The same notion that had driven so many to their blind deaths in the name of their so-called duty. The same notion that had made Rodrigue say the very words that Felix could never bring himself to fully forgive him for.

He had long discarded his own personal copies of them, despite treasuring them so much as a child. Only to now receive his father's own in turn. The goddess must've surely enjoyed mocking him.

Felix had half a mind to toss them out, just as he had all those years ago. And yet, holding them in his hands now, his fingers simply refused to budge. Only continued to hold onto them, as he continued glaring down at the covers.

'Loog and the Maiden of Wind'. The story of King Loog and one of the most famous knights of his time. How they had met in their childhood, how they had been separated due to the growing turmoil and tension between Houses Hresvelg and Blaiddyd, only to be reunited in their adulthood where Loog had won her over to his side after triumphing over her in a duel. How she had fought so gallantly in all the battles with the Empire that had happened shortly after, and ended up dying for her would-be king's sake during a failed negotiation with the Emperor that eventually sparked the War of the Eagle and Lion.

And then there was 'The Sword of Kyphon'. The story of King Loog and his sworn friend Kyphon, the Legendary Swordsman. How they had met in their adolescence, when the local swordsmith of the village Loog had fled to had taken Loog in when he had been on the run from the Empire, and Kyphon had been the swordsmith's protégé. How Loog had fought for his House's and, by extension, Faerghus' freedom from the Empire and eventually ruling as their king, and how Kyphon had been by his side through it all, serving as his sword and shield, up until the day he lost his life protecting Loog from an assassin.

Two of the most prominent examples that most Faerghus knights would bring up, when speaking of how it would be an 'honour' to die in service to their king as Kyphon and the Maiden of Wind had. Of how they would wish to die just as 'valiantly' and 'courageously', exchanging their lives for that of their king, and have the stories of their 'bravery' passed down from generation to generation.

The same had been said of Glenn. By his fellow knights, by his betrothed, by his own father. And now with Dimitri's return to reclaim Fhirdiad from the Empire's influence and word of what happened at Gronder spreading around the liberated capital, so would Rodrigue.

It was so, so stupid.

He had spent all his life walking in his brother and father's shadows. Glenn had been a prodigy, serving in Dimitri’s personal guard at the age of fifteen. Their father had become the first ever Fraldarius since Kyphon's time to be known throughout the land as the Shield of Faerghus, not simply the King's Shield. But the both of them were gone. Gone, only for their deaths and memory to end up being glorified in the name of chivalry.

Felix would not follow them down that path.

He didn't ask to inherit the duchy. He didn't ask to inherit his father and brother's duties, to bear the expectations that had been forcibly placed on him with their passing. He didn't ask to live while most of his family had died, only to be given all that his father and brother had left behind.

And, at the end of the day, that was what it all boiled down to.

His father and brother were gone, but Felix was still alive. And nothing he did could ever bring them back.

But.

Holding onto these books now. Looking at his father's belongings. Being reminded of his father and brother's deaths, and the regret that he had carried deep within himself that he would never be able to erase.

There should still be something, he realised, that he could still do.

That night, Felix opened the note that he had left in the advice box and the crates his uncle had given to him. On that same night, he wrote a separate reply to his mystery advisor, tied it up as he had done before, exited his room, and made his way over back to the cathedral in order to finally put a lid over this affair.

He would only step in far enough to locate the advice box, drop the note back in, and then swiftly return to his room. There would be no need for him to remain in the cathedral any longer than for such a straightforward task.

But he hadn't expected there to be somebody else other than him to be at the cathedral at this dead hour of the night.

He recognised that large, hulking figure anywhere. That startling blue cloak he always carried upon those shoulders, the thick fur lining it that had once been soaked with blood. The lock of blond hair that he now kept so neatly tied back, when it had been so unkempt and matted with grime and blood before.

Felix froze.

In that figure Felix could see the carcass of the atrocious beast that once lurked and haunted these halls like the wraiths it hung around its neck, the shadow it had cast stretching across the holy grounds like a vast, gaping abyss that mercilessly devoured everything in its path. In that figure Felix could see the stature of the man who could rightfully be called king gazing beyond the castle walls of Fhirdiad as he watched over his land and his people, his armour gleaming like the stars above as he wore the moonshine as though it were the crown upon his head that the goddess herself had personally bestowed on him.

And then the king with the instincts of a beast did what he had not done before.

He turned. Looked straight at where Felix stood, meeting him directly in the eye. Not at anywhere else, not at anyone else, but Felix alone. His sole eye widening as he let out a murmur so quiet that Felix could not hear it at such a distance. But from the way his lips had moved, Felix could tell.

It had been his name.

The note nearly slipped out of Felix's hand.

For here in this cathedral where a monster once prowled, under the moonlight where a king once stood, with only the empty halls and the night sky above as their audience, Felix could finally see him in his entirety, not the mere glimpses he had before.

The person who had been more than just a mindless, ruthless creature. The person who had been more than just an upright prince or a king. The person whom Felix had once thought to be long dead, whom Felix had once thought to have lost together with his brother in Duscur. The person whose side Felix had wanted nothing more than to stay by.

_"Because that's what we do, Felix, when we're still alive. We keep on moving."_

_Oh,_ Felix realised. Of course. _Of course._

There was something that he could do. Something that he could choose to do.

The answer that Felix had unknowingly been seeking – it had been there all along. It always had.

And when he looked upon Dimitri again, the next day in the middle of their training, he voiced it.

"I have more important things to do than blubber for my whole life."

After he returned to his room to retire for the day, he decided to pen a letter to his uncle. A proper correspondence to his last remaining family, for all that he had done. His uncle deserved that much, at the very least.

It would be the first of Felix's many, many letters sealed with the wax stamp bearing the Crest of Fraldarius.

~*~

In the darkness, Felix sees nothing. Feels nothing. Smells nothing. Tastes nothing.

It is a bleak, hollow world of nothing but blackness, where even gravity is non-existent; devoured by the mandibles of the emptiness until none of it is left.

Whether he is falling down, floating up, being dragged sideways – there is no way to tell. When he tries to move, he realises that there is no way to free himself of it. As though every fibre of his being has melted away and sieved into the fabric of the blackness.

In this darkness, there is the indistinguishable sound of someone crying.

Felix tries to look at his surroundings. But the best he can manage is a small shift of his head towards where he thinks the sound is coming from, and he finds that keeping his eyes open is about as good as closing them shut for he still continues to see nothing.

The crying continues. Sniffles echo around the black world. A choking sound, here and there – but the weeping remains incessant in spite of it.

And Felix hears them sob, over and over and over again, those same few words:

"He's gone." "They're all gone." "Why?"

"Why does this have to happen?"

Those same words that Felix himself might've wanted to say, a very long time ago, that he swallowed down and kept buried within himself. That familiar voice that Felix can't possibly mistake for anyone else. Even right down to the manner of crying – that obnoxious, mortifying whining.

It's all too reminiscent. All too similar.

It makes Felix want to tear down the darkness and expose the little whelp and demand them to stop the pathetic snivelling.

But he has no way to move, no way to even speak, to tell whoever it is that it's useless. That there's no point in just sitting there and crying over things that can no longer be changed. That it doesn't help anyone, doesn't achieve anything, doesn't bring back whatever it is they've lost.

A sniffle so loud that it almost sounds like a snort reaches Felix's ears. "Then what can I do?"

Felix startles, but remains unable to say anything about it.

"What can I do?" the voice repeats, growing restless.

 _You can get up,_ Felix wants to say, as he had to himself before, _and fight. Fight and train, so that you can grow stronger. Grow stronger, so that you can live. Live, so that you can grow stronger._

"But why would I want that?"

_Because if you don't, then people can and will die. People who you need to be stronger for._

The voice cracks. "But I... I don't have anyone left," they whimper.

 _You do,_ Felix tells them. _You just think that you don't._

"You're wrong."

_No, I'm not._

"You're wrong," the voice insists. "There's nothing I can do anymore. Nothing I do matters anymore."

Felix seethes. _Then you're a fucking coward._

The voice goes silent. The sobbing dies down, and Felix hears nothing more from them. Remains as he is, suspended in the darkness, with no means of telling exactly where he is, and no means to escape from the invisible entrapment.

Instead, he feels it. The pinprick of a stare so intense it almost feels like it's piercing through him, knifing down his neck like the cold steel of a polished blade trailing over his spine. The incensed, glacial thrum of bloodlust humming through the air.

Then suddenly he sees them. The child with navy blue hair and eyes of molten gold. The child who had appeared in Felix's dream-nightmare-illusion. The child who wielded themself like how they did their dagger: wild, untamed, with only the blind intent to kill. The child who has just manifested out of nothing, surrounded by an ethereal mist, when Felix hasn't even blinked.

The same child glares at him, with eyes full of scorn and rage.

"If I'm a coward," they hiss, "then what are you?"

The impending blade cuts through his collarbone. Tears it down, slashing across his chest, narrowly missing his heart.

And the memory crashes onto him like an avalanche, entombing him alive.

His throat strangles out a wretched scream. He gasps, struggling to breathe. Out of his collarbone, a gush of blood spurts into the air, and sprinkles down upon him as flowers with long, scarlet petals. White dots dance across his vision like a flurry of diamond dust, as his world turns as blank as snow.

He remembers. He remembers.

_Dimitri… Sylvain… Ingrid…_

_My promise… I…_

And then Felix knows nothing more.

~*~

The door opens, bringing with it a dull ray of light. A ray of light that remains flickering in the dark even as the door is later closed shut. He senses rather than sees it draw, nearer and nearer, as the featherlight footsteps glide forward closer to him, like the warmth of a new day's dawn trying to reach out for him. Like the familiar hand that has broken through the darkness for him, countless times over.

In the faint glow of the light, he hears one voice above all the others.

"Dimitri," they say. "We've found them."

At the proclamation, he stills. The murmuring slowly dies down into echoes of whispers ringing in his ears. Then it escalates, turning into a deafening wail that threatens to drown out all of his senses. Loud one moment, then quiet the next, oscillating between the two extremes, causing his head to pound. And pound, and pound.

"Dimitri?"

He shakes his head, which only makes his vision swim. Mumbles out a reply that he himself can barely make sense of.

Then, shakily, he stands. Looks out of the window, then at the figure laid out on the bed in front of him, feels his fingers curl into fists by his side, before turning to face the person who had just entered the room.

He takes in a breath. Then lets it go.

He knows what it is that he must do, now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Um. Felix Navidad, everyone? 
> 
> ~
> 
> \- Again I am being not very subtle with the symbolism and parallels you might've noticed while reading this chapter haha though there might be certain things that I've subconsciously placed in  
> \- As you can probably tell, Felix's monastery dialogue post-Gronder + That Advice Box Note + Dimilix's A support haunt me to no end. I think it's interesting how Intsys chose to depict how Felix grieved in his own way over his father's death, although I do admit it was kinda sad we didn't get more about it, so I wanted to take the chance to delve deeper into Felix's feelings and thoughts about it and how it inevitably tied him back to his relationship with Dimitri  
> \- Honestly Intsys you can't just put in 'The King's Right Hand' as the literal name of a star in the actual game canon and not expect me to write something about it when I happen to like stars dammit  
> \- Byleth be out there trying so damn hard to get their OTP together and still not quite seeing the results yet sadly. I'm sorry Byleth


End file.
